The Talk - Shinobi Version
by Sakiku
Summary: Team 7 has reached an age where it is time for The Talk. The 'how's have already been covered at the academy – now it is time to get into the 'why's. Despite the humor, a serious fic
1. Chapter 1

**Summary:** Team 7 has reached an age where it is time for The Talk. The 'how's have already been covered at the academy – now it is time to get into the 'why's. (Despite the humor, a serious fic)

**Rating:** M (nothing graphical and no bad language except for a few cuss words, but a very open-minded attitude towards sex and other sensitive topics like rape)

**WARNING (READ PLEASE):** For shinobi, sex is a tool. They are going to treat it like that in their discussion. And they are going to talk about rape from the victim's perspective. If you don't like that, don't read the story. There's a reason it's rated Mature and I've selected 'angst' as primary genre.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Naruto (not only the character, but the whole fandom) and I don't make any money from it.

**A/N:** I like exploring the darker sides of the shinobi world. Beware of sensitive topics! Also, this is a bit of an experiment with a new writing style, so tell me if you liked it.

* * *

**The Talk – Shinobi Version**

It was a very nice morning, sunny and clear, the birds chirping, with nary a cloud showing on a deep blue sky.

Well, morning might be a bit of an exaggeration, as it was only morning in the sense that it wasn't quite noon yet, and the temperature had already risen to a comfortable 25°C. It would get hotter still during the early afternoon hours.

Hatake Kakashi strolled lazily into the isolated, out-of-the-way training ground where he had told his team to meet him, oh, about two hours ago. Or had it been three? There had been that black cat that had crossed his path, and he'd had to take a detour to make sure that the bad luck didn't affect him, and then he'd had to help a little girl rescue her parakeet out of a tree, and of course the parakeet had led him on a merry chase through town before it had…

The unanimous 'Liar!' from both Naruto and Sakura was reassuringly familiar. And Sasuke's disapproving glare, too.

Kakashi smiled lazily at them, not telling them that he had spent the better part of this morning – and of last evening and the last few days, too, come to think of it – trying to figure out how to properly talk about such a sensitive topic with them. Yesterday, he had finally decided to go through with it because the chuunin exams were getting closer, and they needed that information in the improbable case that they should participate and, heavens forbid, pass.

Because of that, he had told them yesterday to meet at this hidden and out-of-the-way training ground; that, and he really didn't need any interruptions outside of what Team Seven's usual antics would produce.

Kakashi looked down seriously at the three faces staring at him with varying degrees of expectance because training ground 15 wasn't the bridge they normally met at. Well, at least nowadays, he didn't have to look down that far anymore to meet their eyes. Both Sasuke and Naruto had hit growth spurts recently, and Sakura wasn't faring too badly in that respect, either.

But they were still so young, twelve, barely thirteen.

Then again, Kakashi had been younger when he had been told what he was going to tell his students now.

He sighed. It shouldn't be necessary, but it was.

He settled himself against the base of a tree, motioning for the three to sit down in front of him. "Alright, you three, today we're going to have the Talk."

The reactions he got were about the ones he had expected. Sasuke was glowering, Naruto was grinning like a loon, and Sakura was blushing to the tip of her roots.

"A-ano, sensei, we… we already learned about – _that_ – in the academy…" She blushed even harder. "We covered it in our kunoichi classes, and… I think Iruka-sensei made sure the guys covered it, too…"

Kakashi raised an eyebrow. He would be very surprised if such a sensitive topic had been discussed in front of a whole classroom. Especially in front of a classroom of academy students who, despite all their teachings, had no idea yet of the realities of shinobi life. "You did?"

Sakura nodded emphatically. "Y-yes! Ayako-sensei was very thorough. She told us all about how it worked, and she even showed us…" She trailed off for a moment, and Kakashi was starting to wonder what exactly the kunoichi had shown them. Probably only a life-sized, realistically shaped reproduction of the organs involved, but with the way Sakura had said it… Kakashi had to suppress a smile. Satou Ayako certainly had few enough inhibitions, and she just might have managed to rope one of the other chuunins, or even a jounin, into becoming part of a live demonstration. On the other hand, Sakura probably would be blushing a lot more if that was the case, and it certainly would have hit the jounin grapevine if Satou had really managed to traumatize an entire kunoichi class like that.

The boys looked very intrigued, even though Sasuke was trying to hide it.

Then Sakura shook herself and continued, as composed as she was capable of. "Well, she explained the mechanics to us, and how to use… protection."

"She did? Iruka-sensei did, too," Naruto crowed, finally unable to keep silent anymore. "I even tried to help out with my sexy-no-jutsu, to show the guys who didn't want to believe that girls really looked like that down there! But then Iruka-sensei got mad and hit me on the head and dispelled my awesome technique." The boy actually pouted.

Kakashi was very hard pressed not to start snickering uncontrollably. He could just imagine the chaos that kind of interruption had created. He'd have to get _that_ story out of Umino some day. On a more serious note, if Naruto's changes really went down to intimate detail, Kakashi should probably arrange for the hyperactive boy to hear the other side of the Umino's Talk, too. Just to make sure that there were no… unexpected accidents. That, and maybe sit the boy down and tell him about such things like feminine modesty. Or modesty in general. Or while he was already at it, pound some common sense and manners into the brat and hope they stuck.

He might just as well wish for Anko to give up her dango and Asuma to stop smoking, that would be equally likely to happen.

With long months of practice, he blocked out Sasuke's expected response of "Dobe, no one asked you to," and Sakura's even more predictable fist to Naruto's skull for degrading women like that. However, before things could devolve into a three-way-brawl, Kakashi decided to step in. He had quite a lot of very serious information to cover, after all.

"Alright the three of you, quit it. I get it that you are adequately familiar with the mechanics of sex and how to prevent unwanted pregnancies, but have you already had the shinobi version of the Talk?"

It was almost cute how his three students froze in mid-motion, Sakura's hand fisted in Naruto's hair, Naruto's fist well on its way towards Sasuke's face, and Sasuke's face ducking down to sweep Naruto off his legs. Three wide pairs of eyes stared up at him with an equal mixture of horror, confusion, and curiosity.

After they sorted each other out, which limbs belonged to who, it was Naruto who first dared to ask what they were all thinking. "Shinobi version, sensei? Like in the books you like to read?"

Kakashi stopped for a moment and cocked his head to the side. Well, although Naruto certainly hadn't intended his comment that way, there actually was some truth to it. Jiraiya, with his long years of ninja experience, had inevitably included some quite shinobi-like attitudes towards sex in his books. Not so much for the main character, who inevitably was some doe-eyed virgin getting introduced to the joys of intimacy by an experienced, handsome lover, but the side pairings and the story around them? Hell yes. Some of Jiraiya's hottest scenes happened outside the main couple.

But, back to his three little genin. Naruto was once again ducking a fist, and Sasuke was frowning with crossed arms. "Actually," Kakashi interrupted them, "that wasn't completely wrong. Have any of you begun to experiment with your body and its responses yet?"

Blank stares that rapidly turned into horror and disgust. "Eeewww! Like, you mean, touching myself like Iruka said boys liked to do? Pervert!" As expected from Naruto. Sasuke looked similarly put off. Keh, children. Sakura though was turning an interesting shade of red. Was that simply embarrassment from such an intimate question, or was she recalling memories? Girls generally tended to mature faster than boys in that respect. Kakashi certainly hadn't had any idea what Minato-sensei was talking about when he had received the same talk. But then, Kakashi had been nine.

He sighed. He had known this was going to be awkward. "Alright, a different question. Do you know why people have sex?"

Blushes receded, to be replaced with curious confusion. General silence. "To make babies?" Sakura tentatively asked after an awkwardly long pause.

Kakashi nodded towards her, glad that he had gotten any response. "That's right, procreation is one reason. The human sex drive is one of the strongest responses we have, just below the need for self-preservation. Especially after life-threatening situation, it is normal for the sex-drive to assert itself to ensure the continuation of the human race. It is a very basic urge that everyone has, and nobody has to be ashamed of it."

He sighed at the number of blank stares he received. That seemed to be the general motto for today. Apparently he had been too vague in his word choice.

"Translation: If you get the urge to fuck after fighting, that's normal. Just see to it that you get it out of your system so that it won't distract you during the rest of your mission, but take care that no enemy catches you with your pants down. That's an embarrassing way to die." There, that should be suitably blunt.

…

Apparently a bit too blunt. Oh, how innocent his little genin still were…

Sakura was once again the first one to recover. "Senseiiii," she whined, her red color returning full force. As if that was a sign for the other two to awake from their stunned freeze, Naruto bellowed something about never doing something that perverty, and Sasuke scowled. With his cheeks burning.

Kakashi smiled.

"Alright," he giggled, but quickly returned to a somber mood. This conversation really wasn't anything to laugh at, especially now that he had already discussed the least difficult point. "Who can give me another reason to have sex?"

"Besides getting off on missions?" Wonder over wonders, taciturn Sasuke had melted long enough to apply some of his much-vaunted sarcasm.

Kakashi rolled his eyes. "Besides creating the next generation of annoying little genin. Do people always have sex just for procreation? Think of the Floating World (1)."

"Floating world?" Naruto's stare was blank. Kakashi barely restrained himself from sighing. One more gap in the boy's already sketchy education. And those blank looks really were getting old fast.

Fortunately, Sasuke seemed to catch on this time. Of course, he did it in his usual gruff manner. Although his cheeks were still a bit colored. "Brothels and prostitution, idiot. The river district."

"Oh, like what Akane-neesan and Suzuka-neesan from Willow Street(2) do? They say that their work's lots of fun!" With his foxily closed, smiling eyes, Naruto didn't see the disbelieving stares he received from all present.

Even Kakashi.

Well, maybe the boy's education wasn't as sketchy as he had thought. At least Willow Street was one of the more respectable areas in the river district, with plenty of upscale tea houses and security and restaurants and well-educated courtesans that took pride in their work and would never sink as low as preying on an innocent boy. Two streets further down though, the true misery of the river district emerged in full force with hookers lining the streets, an astronomically high crime rate, very active drug trade, and people desperate enough to try nearly anything to get money. Even shinobi were wary when they had to go there. The sheer amount of poverty and bleakness got to Kakashi every time. Especially the fact that it was right within the borders of Konoha.

Kakashi cleared his throat, pushing back memories of missions better left forgotten. "And dare I ask how you met 'Akane-neesan' and 'Suzuka-neesan'?"

Naruto put a hand behind his head, like he always did when he was slightly uncomfortable, but his grin grew even wider. "Well, when I was about six, I managed to break my keys in my door lock, and they let me stay with them for the night 'cause it was winter and real cold out there! And they were real nice about it, too! Fed me and even let me watch them dance for a while! They're really awesome with those fans!"

Really. That still didn't explain just how Naruto had gotten from his apartment near the hokage tower all the way down to the river district, and even less of how he had met the two… maiko or geisha (3), Kakashi assumed, but that was a topic for another time. Preferably after Kakashi had asked the Sandaime whether he was aware of Naruto's connections to the Floating World, and whether Akane and Suzuka checked out clean. The last thing Konoha needed was an agent from another village making nice with Konoha's jinchuuriki right under their noses.

He made a mental note to visit the Hokage after this talk was over.

But, a return to the topic on hand was necessary. "They probably have trained with those fans from childhood on. But back to what you said before, that they enjoyed their work? That was what I was trying to get at. Many people don't have sex to make babies, but because it's fun."

Ah, and there was Sakura's reaction that he had been waiting for. Outrage. Rose-tinted outrage, at that. "That's not true! They make love because they really like each other!"

To both Naruto's and Sasuke's visible surprise, Kakashi agreed with her, which stole the wind right out of her sails. "And that's the third reason. But let's cover the fun aspect first. What do you think this has to do with shinobi life?"

"… That shinobi missions are supposed to be fun because they get horny from the fighting and then get to have sex?"

… Kakashi should have seen that one coming. Delivered in Sasuke's deadpan, it was even funnier. Especially when Sakura looked like she couldn't quite decide whether to hit her crush like she would have done with Naruto. Naruto was just standing there, mouth gaping open as if he couldn't understand how everyone around him was turning into perverts.

Shrugging his shoulders, Kakashi nonchalantly shoved his hands into his pockets. "If you want to see it that way. I thought I had already implied that on the last point though. What I wanted to say was that there's the option to use sex to achieve your mission goal. Not so much fun for you, but fun to whoever you're trying to seduce."

This time, it was Naruto who started sputtering. "B-but, why do we have to do something like _that_ when we can just beat them up?"

"So you'd try and beat up someone you know is stronger than you, even if you just need to get to some information he might have?" Kakashi didn't quite know whether to laugh or cry. Beating up anything that moved certainly seemed Naruto's standard number 1 response.

"Hell yeah!" Naruto nodded emphatically, and received a bop on the head for that.

"And if it's an important dignitary?"

The blond boy hesitated for a bit. "Well, I might try to catch them in one of my super-awesome traps first, and then dangle them out of the window, and I bet they'll talk real quick 'cause they're afraid of my awesome ninjaness!"

Kakashi groaned lightly. This was a political disaster waiting to happen. "And if you don't even know where the information is?"

"Then I'm gonna make a thousand clones and have them search for it! I bet I can find it before Sasuke-teme that way!"

Scratch that. Beating up people seemed to be all that Naruto knew. Hadn't anyone ever taught the boy that subtlety might be the way to go? That subtlety might even get better results than bashing his head against the next obstacle until one or the other gave way?

Fortunately Sasuke and Sakura looked a bit more capable of grasping that concept. Sakura especially looked thoughtful and a bit queasy. "So… so, is that what Ayako-sensei meant with kunoichi going on seduction missions? That- that they'd have to… you know?"

Kakashi nodded gently. "Yes. Sometimes, there's no other way to get close enough to the target when you want to get information or eliminate them. There's a special division in ANBU that focuses on such missions. And Sasuke, Naruto, there's no reason for you to laugh, because there's men who do that, too. Not all targets are male, and not all of them are straight." And he was so not getting into the joys of gay sex, when they didn't even properly comprehend the hetero part yet.

"Konoha tries to make sure that all such missions go to ANBU, but that doesn't mean there won't ever be a mission where you have to at least pretend to be interested in a target. Right now, you're still a bit young for that, but that will change in a few years."

This new silence was a mixture of awkward and thoughtful as the three tried to come to grips with what Kakashi had just revealed to them. He let them think quietly, because it really was hell of a thing to spring on such young children. But better tell them now and let them get used to such thoughts than half an hour before they had to go on exactly such a mission.

Kakashi's own reaction had been quite different; at that age, he had still been the cold, rule-bound bastard he had turned into after his father's death. He had merely taken in the information as fact, that there was the possibility that one day, he'd have to spread his legs for Konoha, and not thought any more about it because it was Konoha and shinobi did what they were told to. Even if they didn't want to or thought it was disgusting. Minato certainly had been surprised by that attitude and not known how to deal with that.

"K-Kakashi-sensei?" Sakura looked honestly frightened.

He tried to smile at her reassuringly. "Hm?"

"Do- do genin also have to go on missions like that?" She hopefully glanced up at him, trusting him to say 'no'. Sadly, he couldn't reassure her like that.

He scratched his head. "Well, as I already said, missions where it's already clear from the beginning that seduction is involved, those immediately go to ANBU. There's only chuunin and jounin there. But there have been other, regular missions where it's been a field decision to send in a seduction attempt because it was the only way to get out of there alive and with all limbs attached." Or to get out at all. Most of the time, there had already been heavy losses before such a thing was even considered. "And, yes, I can recall a mission where a genin had to step up." One cluster-fuck of a mission that had happened during the war. Sensei dead, wounded team-mates about to be discovered, and playing the lost-little-girl card the only chance to get close enough to kill. Rin had told him about that after she had heard it from the kunoichi involved, one of her friends from the academy.

"Oh…"

Kakashi didn't know what had become of her; he'd had too much trouble getting adjusted to Obito's eye and the radical change of personality he had been forcing himself through. Now he almost regretted not having asked again. On the other hand, maybe it was better that he didn't know. Such things had a tendency to leave deep psychological scars.

Fortunately, the boys had enough tact not to bother her while she was working through this new revelation. Naruto was fidgety and uncomfortable, looking at Sakura with concern, and more than once he reached out for her but drew back before he could touch her. Sasuke, too, was throwing her small, almost unnoticeable glances before quickly looking away again.

"Have you?" Her voice was even smaller, her hands wringing when she didn't quite dare meet his eyes. The two boys though didn't have the same problem, staring at him with a new look in their eyes, as if they had never considered their sensei eligible for such missions. Kakashi couldn't quite decide whether he should feel amused, or simply old.

He shook his head. "Not as a genin."

Which really didn't say much. He had been genin for only about a year, before he had been promoted to chuunin. At six. At their age, when the normal seduction missions cropped up, he had already been a jounin. But there always were sick pedophiles around who enjoyed molesting children. The younger the better.

But he didn't tell them any of that. He had given them enough to chew on already without involving any human depravities.

Finally, Sakura drew in a deep breath, counted to three, and released it slowly. Then she looked back up at Kakashi. "Alright. You said there was a third reason? Making love?"

Brave little girl. He could see it in her eyes that she was bracing herself for a bad revelation again, and Kakashi was sad he couldn't disappoint her.

"Yes," he nodded, deciding to take it slow to give them time to get over their last shock. "Making love. What's the difference between that and what we have covered so far?"

The stares weren't quite so blank this time, rather preoccupied.

"Well, you make love with someone you really like," Sakura finally volunteered.

Sasuke summed it up more concisely, looking reluctant to be seen contributing constructively to the discussion. "Emotions."

Yes, his little genin were catching on to where this was going. Just a little hint, and they'd have it. Or at least part of it. "And how can that be used against a ninja?"

Interestingly enough, it was Naruto who made the connection. The normally healthy-looking boy paled under his tan and clenched his fists. "Traitors. Spies," he ground out surprisingly viciously.

Well, maybe not so surprisingly after his experience with Mizuki. Had anyone sat the boy down and talked with him about the event? That, although Mizuki had hated him and had used him to get to the forbidden scroll, it probably wasn't anything personal? That, if Naruto hadn't been there, Mizuki would have found another way to defect? Probably a bit more successfully, too.

Kakashi smiled humorlessly. "That's right. Spies. Deep cover agents. Just like Konoha runs seduction missions, other countries make use of the same technique to get agents into Konoha. After all, what better way to get to state secrets than being the favored and trusted lover of a high-ranking shinobi?"

He gave them a bit of time to digest that before he continued. "But emotions are a lot more far-reaching. Do you remember the day of the bell-test? When Naruto was tied to the post and Sasuke charged at me?"

Three grimaces told him that they remembered the day very well indeed. "Sakura, what did I ask you when I had Sasuke on the ground?"

Her eyes widened, and her already pale face became ghost-like when she made the connection. "You- you asked me to kill – N-Naruto, or you'd kill Sasuke-kun-"

"And what if I hadn't asked you to kill Naruto, but to bring me some measly papers that just couldn't be worth a life? Or tell me some information? Or just don't sound an alarm when you see something suspicious?" Or just about a dozen of other small, almost unnoticeable things that didn't look important at first glance, but which could make or break an enemy invasion.

They fell quiet, each a very disturbed look on their face. "But," Naruto reluctantly asked, "doesn't that go for teammates, too? Or friends? Didn't you tell us that those who abandon their teammates are lower than trash?"

Kakashi sighed. Although he had expected the question and had prepared himself for it, it didn't change the fact that there was no standard all-purpose answer. "I did tell you that, didn't I? Did I also tell you about my father? Hatake Sakumo?"

He had spent long enough with the knowledge of what had happened that it didn't hurt anymore to think about it. Well, almost didn't hurt anymore.

Sakura's brain obviously was searching that enormous library she had stored up there, trying to find where she had heard that name before. Kakashi wouldn't be surprised if she knew the story in exhausting detail. She was gifted like that. When her eyes lit up, Kakashi knew she had found it.

"Hatake Sakumo, Konoha's White Fang? One of the greatest ninjas, said to be even better than the sannin?" She continued in her exuberance without waiting for him to confirm her guess. "He was considered one of Konoha's strongest fighters, but about two years before his death, he fell into disgrace because he failed a mission, and in the end he killed… himself…"

She trailed off, apparently realizing only then that she was talking not about some anonymous historical personality, but about Kakashi's father. Who had killed himself.

The pain was so old and familiar that Kakashi ignored it automatically. That way, he was able to smile at her with up-turned eyes. "That's right. And do you also know the story of how he fell into disgrace?"

She drew here brows together in a cute frown. Naruto and Sasuke looked at her expectantly, but every now and then they shot uncertain glances at Kakashi. It was clear that they were either worrying about Kakashi's reaction (Naruto) or pondering that new fact about their teacher (Sasuke).

"Well," she began slowly, "it was about a year before the beginning of the Third Shinobi War, when Sakumo-sama and his team ran into trouble somewhere along the borders of Stone, I think. Sakumo-sama chose to save his teammates instead of completing the mission, and that got a lot of people killed. It's said that he's the one responsible for the outbreak of the war…"

With a tiny grimace that was hidden behind his mask, Kakashi interrupted her, not really wanting to hear the rest of the story. Especially since it wasn't important to the lesson at hand. "Well, that's not quite true. There were many other factors, too, that played into that. But what is important is that many more people died than he saved that night. And all because he chose his teammates over his mission."

Naruto's betrayed looks hurt almost more than the thought of Sakura retelling the rest of the story to its gory end twenty years ago when Kakashi had come home to find his father in a pool of his own blood.

"So you're saying you've been telling us crap all this time?" the blond demanded furiously. "Why say all that stuff about not abandoning your teammates when you don't even believe it?"

Kakashi shrugged, more flippant than he felt. "Well, I tried the other extreme for about six years after my father's death. Live only by the rules, do everything for the mission, and teammates come last. Didn't work out that well, either." Only Sasuke caught his aborted twitch towards the Sharingan. Then Kakashi grew utterly serious again. "Listen, Naruto, there will be times when you can't save everyone. And then you'll have to choose. I've shown you the two extremes of how people deal with this; you will just have to find a middle way."

Naruto's mulish expression wasn't very promising. And indeed –"I'll save everyone, Kakashi-sensei, you'll see, and then I won't have to choose between teammates and my mission. That's my new way of the ninja! Believe it!"

At least Kakashi wasn't the only one who saw the glaringly obvious flaws with that statement. It was cute and childishly naïve to think one could protect everyone from harm, but that wasn't an attitude that went well with being shinobi. There would inevitably come the day where one couldn't protect everyone, and Kakashi needed Naruto capable of making a clear-headed decision in such a case instead of tearing himself up trying to make the impossible possible. Ninja had broken because of less.

And he didn't want Naruto to break.

"Dobe! You think you're better than the sannin? How can an idiot like you succeed where even Konoha's best have failed?" The sneer on Sasuke's face was a sight to see.

But when talking with a stubborn knuckle-head like Naruto, that was clearly the wrong thing to say. Kakashi could practically hear Naruto's new conviction snapping into place. The blond glared at Sasuke, automatically ducking the bop to his head. "I'll show you, you'll see! Naruto Uzumaki always keeps his promises!"

It was once again time for Kakashi to step in before the fists really started flying. "Ahem, that is a very admirable nindo, Naruto, but you have to realize that other people might choose a different way." A less idealistic way that wasn't going to fail them that easily. "Well, back to lovers and emotions – what you just discussed for teammates, that obviously also goes for lovers. The situation might be slightly different; for one, Konoha tries to ensure that no couples are deployed on the same mission and so you might never need to make a choice like that; but on the other hand, lovers are more at risk of being targeted to get at you specifically. It would be a good idea to decide for yourself beforehand how much your love is worth to you, and how much Konoha is. How much other people's lives are."

He stared them down mercilessly when Naruto tried to bring up his nindo again and Sakura looked ready to argue for True Love. "No, don't say anything. A good ninja should be aware of what the people and things around him are worth to him. What the mission is worth. And what he himself is worth. As genin, it is highly unlikely that you will get a mission more important than your life, but the higher you rise in the ranks, the more likely that becomes. When the Fourth went to kill the Kyuubi, he decided that the continued existence of Konoha and her shinobi is more important than his own life. Think about that."

And sometimes, Kakashi still cursed his teacher for that, that it had been so easy for him to sacrifice himself when Kakashi had still needed him. But that was shinobi life. People died every day for much more insignificant reasons. Why, one and a half years ago, a chuunin managed to kill himself in a training accident when he had failed to take into account that practicing lightening jutsu in a wet environment was akin to suicide. Now that was just a stupid way to die.

No, Minato-sensei had had the right idea. When it was Kakashi's time to go, he wanted to do it in a way that he could join Obito and Rin and Minato and all the other countless names on the stone.

This time, it was Kakashi who took the longest to come back to the present. His genin had started losing focus; Naruto was scuffing his sandals on the ground, Sakura was looking anywhere but Kakashi, and Sasuke was glowering at nothing in particular. They were a lot more subdued than normal, but Kakashi couldn't quite let them go yet. There was one last point to cover in this lesson.

He didn't even sigh anymore although he was starting to feel every single one of his years. Kakashi had grown up in war-time, and as such had practically inhaled the dirty realities of shinobi life together with the scent of blood and gore on the battle-fields. For Kakashi's talk, Minato-sensei hadn't had to say but one word, and Kakashi had made all the necessary connections on his own. For his naïve little students, Kakashi would have to be a bit more eloquent.

"Alright, we're almost done. You know that lovers can use you and that your emotions for your lovers can be used against you, but that's not all. The emotions themselves that are involved with intimate actions can also be turned against you, and that is especially effective because they run so deep."

He steeled himself for the reactions he was going to get. "I'm talking about torture; more specifically rape. What makes rape so devastating is not the physical pain, there are ways to rape people without causing any pain at all, but the fact that it turns something that should be pleasant and emotionally intimate into something disgusting and unwanted."

Sakura looked sick to her stomach, and Sasuke was glaring even harder off into nothingness, his fingers twitching occasionally. Only Naruto didn't seem to get his meaning beyond the words. Was the boy that emotionally stunted by his unloved upbringing that he couldn't imagine ever being that affected by physical advances, or was he simply too innocent?

Kakashi frowned. "Naruto. You like Sakura, don't you?"

The boy nodded, visibly wary of where Kakashi was taking this. The other two paid close attention, too, even though Sasuke tried to look unaffected.

"And you would like it if she kissed you, wouldn't you?" Another nod from him, a more horrified look from Sakura. Kakashi dropped the bombshell. "What if _I_ tried to kiss you?"

The deer-in-headlights expression was amusing, but there was still too much of a 'Pervert!' undertone in it for Naruto to have caught the complete meaning. Kakashi tried again. "What if Zabuza had tied you up so that you couldn't move, and then started kissing you and taking your clothes off? What if he doesn't stop, no matter how much you plead?"

Yes, that seemed to have sunk in. Not only in Naruto, but Sasuke and Sakura, too, because they could easily substitute themselves into Kakashi's hypothetical situation.

Kakashi went on. "Rape isn't just restricted to women, although their percentage in the rape victims tends to be a lot higher than the men's. A situation doesn't have to proceed all the way to physical intercourse to be called rape. As long as someone forces you to endure unwanted sexual advances, it is called rape.

"For shinobi, it is especially important to know that there is no shame in having been raped. Just like there is no shame in having being tortured. In fact, everyone who makes it out sane and alive from such an ordeal should be proud of themselves. There might be shame in having been captured or having spilled secrets or having done something stupid that got you into that situation in the first place, but there is no shame in something so out of your control like rape." Not even when the rapist was depraved enough to provoke physical responses that gave the impression of willingness on the victim's part. But Kakashi wasn't going to open that bag of cats until the tree of them were old enough to know about how sexual arousal could be purely physical and unwanted.

This would be especially hard to swallow for Sakura, the girl without shinobi heritage, because it was quite common amongst civilians to place the blame with the victim. 'If you hadn't encouraged him like that…' 'If you had struggled more…' 'If you hadn't dressed so skimpily like a ho…'. Yes, there might be blame to place for those circumstances, but not for the act itself. Not even if the victim had been 'willing' to spare themselves from more physical pain.

Sakura twisted her fingers in her lap to the point that Kakashi almost thought she was trying to dislocate her joints. "S-sensei, how… what…" She trailed off with a helpless expression on her face, not even knowing what she wanted to ask. Or what she could, should, had to ask.

Fortunately for her, Sasuke came to her rescue, his voice cold as if he hadn't been affected. "We are genin. Why tell us this now? How does this concern us?" The small, almost unnoticeable tremor though belied him. He was just as shaken as the others, merely better at hiding it.

Yes, all of them were still children inexperienced in the truths of shinobi life. Kakashi had never had to ask the 'why'; he had seen it daily on the battle-fields of the Third Great Shinobi War.

Smiling at them slightly, he tried to gently break the news to them. "You aren't planning on staying genin forever, are you? And it can always happen that a mission goes south and you're captured. You're right, you're still a bit young for this. That's why I only informed you of the basics. But you're shinobi now, and you deserve to know what you're getting yourself into. Also, should something happen despite all odds, you'll at least have a guideline of how to deal with it. You might not agree with me right now, but facing the unknown is always scarier than facing the known evil."

Except for those times when it wasn't. It wasn't easier knowing exactly how much pain an interrogator would inflict on you if you didn't talk. It wasn't easier knowing how much it was going to hurt setting your own bones and limping back to Konoha on broken bones. It wasn't easier knowing just how far it still was when you had a comrade bleeding out on your back and you knew he wouldn't make it. Yes, the realm of not-knowing was fear, but it was hope just as well. With precise numbers to show you your fate, there was very little space left for hope.

Kakashi banished those shadows back to where they belonged to and leaned against the tree trunk more heavily. At least the boys seemed to have taken heart at his speech, and Naruto seemed resolved that he'd conquer that aspect of being shinobi as well. Not quite what Kakashi had intended, but for once Naruto was still thinking instead of proclaiming his resolutions out loud. In that respect, the blond knuckle-head reminded him a bit too much of a certain Green Beast and his genin shadow. The two of them could never go for more than a minute without coming to some new resolve in the name of Youth and Springtime.

Sakura though seemed to have stopped listening half-way in, hung up on something. "The basics?" she continued whispering, like a broken record.

Kakashi frowned. Was she going into shock?

"Sakura," he demanded. "Sakura, look at me." Her face was ghostly pale, her lips bloodless, and she was trembling. Damn. That apparently had been too much information for her. He should have known that women reacted differently to a sensitive topic like rape. Especially when it seemed that they had already been very afraid of something like that before.

"Sakura, calm down. The odds of you encountering anything like rape on a mission are about the same odds as finding it walking down the streets of Konoha." Kakashi deliberately didn't specify which streets he meant. There were some in the river district where it was a daily occurrence that women got raped. In broad daylight in the middle of the street, too, and nobody did anything.

She still looked shocky as hell, but at least her face showed she was listening, and she had stopped mumbling her litany.

"Listen," he continued in as reassuring a tone as he could, his face friendly, his body-language open and helpful. He was pulling out all tricks of the trade to put her at ease. "You have already seen that being a shinobi is a dangerous job. I think we all remember the wave country mission very well. I just told you of another danger that, when compared to the danger of getting hurt or having to fight on a mission, is really miniscule. It's a danger that I think you should be aware of now that you grow older, but there's no need to blow it out of proportion. Just something to help you prepare for all eventualities. And I wouldn't have told you of it if I didn't think you could handle it, alright?"

Kakashi was making it up as he went, always checking the results from Sakura's expression. That didn't mean that what he said was a complete lie, just not the whole truth, either. But when did a shinobi ever tell the complete and unfettered truth?

Slowly he was getting through to her, and him having confidence in her seemed to finally tip the balance. Whew, one crisis averted.

She swallowed harshly, but color was returning to her cheeks. She glanced at him timidly from beneath her eyelashes, wrapping her arms around herself. "H-have you…?"

And there was the next crisis. Kakashi knew exactly what she was asking; had he been forced into sexual intercourse before. The question was, which way should he answer? Would a "yes" send her over the edge again, or would it actually help to know that something like that wasn't the end of the world?

For that matter, was such a strong response to the subject normal for girls her age? Or was there something more behind it? Had she had a bad experience in her past, that his words were triggering again? Maybe it would be worth investigating that later on.

Finally he nodded slowly, not seeing how a "no" would be more beneficial in the long-term.

He deliberately kept his body language open and accepting despite the stares he got from three young faces. Fortunately, both Naruto and Sasuke kept silent, letting him deal with Sakura first. If they still had questions afterwards, he could answer them then. One thing at a time only.

It was obvious that all three of them were struggling to combine the image of their all-powerful-seeming teacher with someone who had been raped. Ironically, Sakura seemed to have the least trouble with it. After a very short period of time, she nodded just as slowly as Kakashi had and looked down at her fiddling fingers again, but her shoulders and her back were a lot more relaxed.

Kakashi didn't quite know what to make of that. Was that an indication of "Thank you for sharing something so private" or a "Yes, that would explain some of your strange behavior"? Or, worst case, a "Yes, I know what that's like"?

Damn it, he really would have to do some investigating now. If the boys hadn't been there, he would have just asked her outright, because it was very hard to fake an honest response when one was already that troubled emotionally. On the other hand, it might not have been the best decision for him, an adult male, to corner a pre-teen girl in such a manner. But the point was moot, anyway, because Naruto and Sasuke were there, and Kakashi would have to do his digging the hard way.

So. "Any questions?"

Apparently not. They were still too stunned to ask. "Alright, I think that's enough for today. I'll give you the rest of the afternoon off, so that you can think some more about what we just discussed. Tomorrow, we'll be meeting at the bridge again as usual. If you find you have thought of more questions, you can ask then."

They didn't even have the energy to respond verbally, they just nodded and got up. Kakashi watched them walk away, each in their own little world and pondering all those revelations.

He sighed and eyed a sparrow hopping closer in the hopes of finding something interesting now that the disturbances had left. That was one of the reasons he absolutely hated being a teacher. It was just so incredibly exhausting, especially with a naive knuckle-head, a maybe traumatized fan-girl and a brooding emo ice-berg as audience.

Had Minato-sensei been similarly tired after talking to him? Probably. It couldn't have been any easier trying to get through Kakashi's own thick skull and armor of ice.

He chuckled. Was that fate's way of revenge for what he had put Minato-sensei through?

Well, before he went to investigate Sakura's and Naruto's issues, he had earned himself a nap now. At least he already knew what Sasuke's issues were, what with them being so incredibly similar to his own. And yet, not similar at all at the same time.

Almost of their own accord, his eyes – eye – slid shut, and he dozed peacefully until he heard a boisterous group of chuunin and maybe a genin or two, from the feel of their chakra, coming closer. He didn't stick around to find out whether they were heading for Training Ground 15 or not.

* * *

1.)Floating World: Japanese expression for the pleasure-seeking life-style during the Edo-period (~1600-1860). The Floating World culture was developed in Edo's licensed red-light district, but isn't just restricted to prostitution. Fine Arts like tea making, kabuki acting, and sumo wrestling also belong into that category. Geishas and all of their arts (dancing, playing music, conversation, company) are also part of the Floating World.

2.)Willow Street: The Flower and Willow World is a synonym for the world of geishas – apprentice geishas, maikos, are called 'flowers' whereas geishas are called 'willows'.

3.) Maiko, geisha: Extremely well-paid courtesans that provide intelligent and sophisticated company for the erudite man. Their main purpose is to entertain through wit, conversation, music, poetry, dancing, serving. Sleeping together is only a very small part. Maiko is an apprentice geisha, usually around the age of 18. Geisha's are ranked depending on the customers they serve – from kings and emperors to common men and office workers. Those on the highest end of the spectrum refuse to consider themselves prostitutes because they are infinitely more than that; those on the lowest end are barely more than that.

* * *

**A/N:** What did you think? Good, bad? Did I made any glaring errors realism-wise? Any OOC-ness? There's going to be a second chapter that deals with Kakashi investigating those open questions still around, but I think that's going to be about it.

Sakiku


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:** Thanks, swabloo and SuperN-Gaspard, for your reviews! Since you were the only ones to take the time and tell me your opinion on the first chapter, I thought you deserved a place of honor right at the top of the next one ^_^.

* * *

Chapter 2

Later that day, after getting the Sandaime's confirmation that Akane and Suzuka had indeed been checked out and marked as harmless, he ran across Umino Iruka. Judging by the towel slung over his shoulder and the small bag with clothes and hygiene articles in his hand, the man was on his way to the bath house. They nodded to each other like the distant acquaintances they were, then Umino stopped and called to him. "Good evening, Hatake-san! How was training today with Team 7? When I met Naruto for dinner, he was very quiet and refused to tell me why."

Ah, yes, protective father instincts rearing their head. An accusation packaged as nonchalant small-talk. Kakashi could appreciate such skills with words. And maybe Umino could give him more information about Sakura and her reactions. He had been her teacher for nearly four years, after all.

He smiled at the chuunin. "Evening, sensei. He was? I gave them a bit to think about. I covered most aspects of the Talk with them."

"The Talk?" Umino was looking at him strangely. "But that's a topic that's been covered extensively in the academy. They should have already known that stuff. And what in the world made it necessary for you to visit that topic? Don't tell me Sakura's been trying to get more physical with Sasuke?"

Kakashi grimaced. That was an image he really didn't need in his head, especially since definitely wasn't out of the realm of possibility. "Thankfully no. And they did inform me that they'd already had the Talk. I built on that and gave them the shinobi version."

For a moment there was no reaction, then horrified outrage bloomed across Umino's face. "Hatake-san! You didn't read your books to them, did you?"

Well, now that was just plain insulting. Why did everyone automatically assume that IchaIcha had something to do with it? "No, I did not," he answered crossly, "and neither did I give them any porn. Do you really think Naruto would have been so subdued if I had showed them something like that?"

Umino at least had the grace to blush. "I apologize, Hatake-san, I jumped to conclusions. But then, what _did_ you talk about with them?"

"The shinobi version, as I already said." Slightly mollified, Kakashi reined in his chakra that, in his anger, had surged a bit. He didn't know whether the chuunin had consciously felt that slip, but he looked a bit more at ease now that the pressure was lifted. Kakashi ticked off on his fingers, "You know, the usual. Mission sex, sex for missions, emotional attachment to lovers, blackmail that plays on that attachment, and forced sex. Only the catching side though, not the pitching. That's something reserved for T&I, should they show interest in that branch."

With the way that Umino's mouth hung open, that couldn't mean anything good. Kakashi shoved his hands in his pockets and continued watching Umino blink, start to say something, stop himself, then blink again and repeat. Occasionally, he clutched the towel slung over his shoulder a bit tighter, too.

Finally, Kakashi couldn't help himself anymore. "What?" Was Umino this rattled just because Kakashi had used the word 'sex' in a public place? Repeatedly?

Umino shut his eyes, apparently counted to ten, shook his head slightly, and counted to ten again. Then he was calm enough to talk properly again. "You know, Hatake-san, I think it would be best if we discussed this in a more private setting."

Kakashi agreed, although probably not for the reason Umino thought. "That would be great. Your place or mine? Or dinner at Moritake's?"

Moritake's was a restaurant that catered almost exclusively to shinobi and their paranoia. Almost no decoration, nearly indestructible and functional furniture, very well-lit to the very last corner, easily visible sight-lines. Those that worried about poisons could sit down at the counter where all food was prepared live in front of the customers, and for those more concerned with privacy there were secluded booths all along the sides of the room where nobody thought anything of it if the customers erected heavy silencing or privacy wards. One just shouldn't complain about service because as soon as wards were up, no waiter came near the booth anymore.

Moritake himself was a grizzled war veteran from the second ninja war, where he had lost his ability to use chakra due to a new Sand poison that the medics hadn't been quick enough to neutralize. And a ninja without chakra was about as useful as a ninja with only one leg. Except if your name was Rock Lee, and you had the fortune of personally being trained by a taijutsu nutcase like Maito Gai.

But for Moritake and several other victims of the poison, there had been no Gai, and they had been a bit too old to completely switch their fighting style like that, so they'd had to look for other ways to earn their living.

"My treat," he added when he saw Umino's wince. Naruto probably had already eaten a hole into the teacher's wallet today, and Kakashi wasn't really that comfortable with visiting Umino's apartment. Or having Umino visit his. And this was just too important for Kakashi to let go. He needed to know whether he should gently steer Sakura in the direction of a mind healer.

And while he was already at it, Sasuke probably should get his own appointments. Naruto, too.

Argh, who was he kidding. The whole team, including himself, was just One Big Problem waiting to explode into his face. He had been saddled with the most dysfunctional group of them all and was expected to perform a miracle and turn them into respectable ninja.

He should have failed them, too, like all the other genin teams.

Umino nodded slowly, obviously waiting for the other shoe to drop. Kakashi wasn't one to be known for generously offering to pay for other people's food. At least not without a secondary motif. Which the chuunin probably had guessed totally wrong because of Kakashi's choice in reading material. "Alright. Let me just run those things back to my apartment and change into something more suitable, and we can meet at Moritake's in ten."

Kakashi agreed with a smile that crinkled his visible eye and nonchalantly strolled off towards the refurbished warehouse. And if he gave an extra swing to his hips to purposely make Umino come to a wrong conclusion, that was purely coincidental. One had to get his kicks where one could.

Kakashi was quite a frequent customer at Moritake's despite the medium to high price-range. It was one of the few places outside his own apartment where he could eat calmly without having to worry about who would try and sneak a glimpse of him with his mask off.

Sometimes he wondered why he was still wearing the mask at all, but then again, he had gotten so used to it that he felt incomplete without it. That, and wearing no mask always made him feel like he was on an undercover mission, like the ones he had been sent on during his time with ANBU. It was remarkable how different he looked with his hair cropped short and dyed a dark brown, his face revealed for all to see, and an eye-patch over his sharingan instead of his usual hitai-ate. With the help of a Permanent Make-up jutsu – and that was a story of its own, Gekkou Hayate's older sister would be able to vouch for that if she weren't dead – the vertical scar through his eye and the tan-line from his mask vanished almost completely. And voila, no copy-ninja but a poor one-eyed farmer/ merchant/ whatever Kakashi happened to pose as.

Face buried in his ever-present book, he waved at a nearly invisible shadow in black and white armor ghosting across the roof-tops to his right. Probably a rookie who hadn't quite learned yet how to move with the stealth ANBU should move with. And Kakashi was always glad to help his fellow ninja by pointing out their short-comings. Better to do that in Konoha proper where a weakness like that was embarrassing, but not lethal like out in the field. Really, Kakashi shouldn't have been able to spot one of the spooks while preoccupied with an especially steamy scene between Mayako, the wide-eyed not-anymore-virgin, and Hiroshi, the experienced and handsome lover's brother. When he wasn't even trying to watch for suspicious movement.

The rookie actually stopped dead in his tracks, and Kakashi had to sigh at the red and white porcelain mask cocked in confusion. Make that a very green rookie, to not know of Kakashi and his tendency to help out with getting new recruits up to scratch. Even though Kakashi had left the troops four years ago, a part of him happened to forget that every now and then. Eight years deeply entrenched in Konoha's blackest blackops could do that to a man

Under the cover of his book, Kakashi formed three successive hand signs and drew on his chakra in an almost unnoticeable E-ranked wind jutsu. The resulting breeze that wafted away from him was utterly harmless, more of a parlor trick than anything else. It brushed against the rookie's skin in the ANBU morse code for _Too obvious, more stealth_, and then dissipated into the evening sky.

That was just about the only use the jutsu was good for; that, and cooling sweaty foreheads. And making paper planes fly a lot farther than they otherwise would have. Minato-sensei had been the one to show him that trick, in an attempt to break through to the child behind the icy façade – Kakashi had answered by returning a folded explosion tag. And he would have gotten his sensei, too, if Minato hadn't used his hiraishin to escape at the last second.

Kakashi sloppily saluted the rookie without ever taking his eyes off what Mayako was doing to Hiroshi, and he stopped only when he reached the entrance to Moritake's. Then he proceeded to lean against the wall several meters away, so as to not scare away any customers, and continued reading.

Just when Hiroshi was about to turn the tables on Mayako, a slightly out-of-breath chuunin landed on the pavement in front of him. Kakashi smiled and put his book away, inconspicuously glancing at his watch. Nine minutes and thirty-four seconds. Very punctual. If it had been Kakashi, it would have been more like nine-_teen_, or maybe even nine_ty_ minutes. But Umino Iruka was an academy teacher, and academy teachers tended to live by the rules they preached to their rambunctious little brats.

"Shall we?" Kakashi actually waited for Umino to nod before heading towards the entrance. He could have been rude and just assumed Umino would follow him, but now wasn't the time to play the arrogant-jounin-meets-self-conscious-chuunin card. He wanted to establish an equal basis of their relationship because he needed Umino to feel free enough to part with sensitive information.

Youkou, one of the waitresses, greeted them and after Kakashi asked her for a private setting for two, steered them along the curtained-off booths until she came to an empty one. "Here you go. Your usual, Hatake-san?"

Kakashi turned to look at Umino askingly. "Do you like Yakiniku? Or would you rather have something else?" Yakiniku, or grilled meat, was a dish where one ordered different raw ingredients, not only meat, and then fried them on a roast over an open flame. Like a small, indoor barbecue. Only that Moritake's didn't allow any fire inside, or any other jutsu except for privacy and silencing jutsus. Instead they provided thick metal slabs enraved with some seals that heated the whole thing up as soon as chakra was fed into them. Customers could either do that themselves, or ask one of the waiters to do it for them.

"Yakiniku is fine," the chuunin nodded, clearly not quite at ease. Was it the thought of Kakashi ordering and paying for both of them, or because of being here with a higher-ranked shinobi, a legend at that? Or because Umino dreaded their conversation? "But only a little bit for me; I have already eaten tonight."

The waitress accepted that without batting an eye-lash. "That is quite alright, Umino-san. Leek, shiitake mushrooms, and edamame(1)? Those are fresh, we just got in a new shipment today. And pork chops, if I remember correctly?"

Ah, yes, that would be Youkou's infamous memory for her customers' preferences. She could probably list every single one of Moritake's customers she had ever served, together with what they had eaten and whether they had liked it. Remainders of a career in Intel before she'd had to quit being a ninja because she had been blinded on a mission. And blind ninjas were just as useful as ones without chakra or only one leg.

Moritake had turned his restaurant into something of a refuge for those washed out of shinobi business due to permanent injuries. All his waiters and cooks were former ninja, and nearly all of them were crippled in one way or another. That didn't mean they were harmless – far from it. Moritake had hired them because of the skills they retained despite their disability. Leading a restaurant for high-level shinobi meant dealing with very skilled and very dangerous fighters when drunk or breaking or just plain pissed off at something.

Kakashi had had the honor of witnessing Matsuo, the one-armed and one-eyed chef, separate three brawling chuunin with precisely placed blows from his spatula, and then drag them outside by the scruff of their necks while they were still holding their abused appendages. All the while lecturing them on how it was just unsanitary that they had forced him to use his cooking implements on people without thoroughly disinfecting both of them before and after.

Dinner and a show.

Umino agreed with Youkou's suggestion, and Kakashi quickly ordered his own choice of ingredients, and then they were alone again.

"I'm always amazed at how easily she moves despite being blind," Umino commented while looking after the disappearing figure of their waitress.

Kakashi merely shrugged. "Practice. And it's easier doing so in an environment you already know, and where there's always high chakra levels around to reflect from inanimate surfaces. Outside in the wilderness, that's where it gets really hard."

The scarred chuunin looked at him in surprise. "You have tried?"

A memory of a broken cheek-bone that had made his good eye swell shut, and because his other used too much energy, he'd had to make a two-day run blind and in agony and with a concussion on top of it.

Not an experience he cared to repeat. It had taken nearly a week to determine whether he'd ever be able to see again because the swelling had put pressure on his eye and had almost damaged it beyond repair. Kakashi was sure Moritake would have had a spot for a sharingan-eyed bouncer.

"Yeah," he drawled lazily. "Practice for night-time fighting."

And of course he had done that, too; any serious jounin made sure they would be in top shape no matter which time of the day.

Umino nodded thoughtfully. "That's a good idea. Maybe I should let one of my advanced classes try it, so that they get an impression what it's like? At the very least it would force them to focus more on what their body and their other senses are telling them."

With a grimace, Kakashi imagined a whole gaggle of children wavering unsteadily on their feet, stumbling around blindly, and flailing their arms in the hopes of hitting something eventually. At least that was what Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura would do, and they had been genin for several months already. "Maybe it would be better if you just made them do their katas blind, and maybe one or two weapon throwing exercises. I think that's challenging enough for them."

Umino winced, too. "Yes, you're probably right. Blind katas will force them to listen to their body, too, and there's far less danger of injury. I'll have to try that out with the next batch of graduating genins, maybe it will serve to calm down the more rash and hot-headed ones."

Ah, very teacher-like – whenever Umino learned something new, he immediately thought of how to turn it into a lesson for his brats and how they could profit from it. Such a personality was very rare amongst ninja, because most cared first and foremost for themselves and how to improve their own abilities.

Kakashi was no exception to that. He was a fighter, and while he wasn't beyond giving his teammates a helping hand or two, he had little to no idea how to properly break down his combat skills so that they could be spoon-fed to his own set of brats. Especially when he was surprised time and again just how much they didn't know that he was taking for granted.

Humming in agreement, Kakashi continued making small-talk about teaching and how to best turn different topics into lessons for academy students, and how the standards had changed over the years. Fortunately, Youkou returned with their food before Kakashi ran out of innocent topics to talk about. She expertly balanced the two trays and the metal plate for grilling and arranged it all neatly on the table between them. She even put the shiitake, edamame and leek dishes closer to Umino, while the egg-plant, enoki (2) and sprouts went on Kakashi's side. Not a single point of hesitation, despite her inability to see what she was doing. She even served them their tea without spilling a drop.

An admirable level of skill.

When she was gone and the curtain closed behind her, Kakashi quickly cast a low-level sound distortion jutsu so that their conversation would appear nonsensical to any listener. But since it wasn't a matter of high security, he left it at that and didn't turn their booth into a veritable fortress of privacy. Then he charged the seals on the grilling plate and hungrily placed the first bite-sized pieces of pork and eggplant on his side. The metal heated so fast that they started sizzling almost immediately, and the mouth-watering smell of roasting meat made him even hungrier.

Their earlier small-talk had put Umino enough at ease that he seemed quite comfortable following Kakashi's example, loading his side of the grill with vegetables and meat.

"Well, Sensei," Kakashi began, sipping his tea through his mask. Or at least made it seem like he was sipping his tea through his mask with the help of a tiny genjutsu that diverted the watcher's attention away from his mouth and gave the illusion of his mask still being in place. "You said that there were some things better discussed in private."

Best to make Umino spill what he had wanted to say before Kakashi made his own inquiries. Might make him more willing to talk afterwards.

Or maybe not. The way Umino's hands stiffened and clenched briefly around his chopsticks wasn't a good sign. Finally, the chuunin set aside the cooking implements and looked Kakashi in the eyes. Eye. Whatever.

"Hatake-san, what in the world gave you the impression that giving children their age … the Talk, Shinobi Version, as you have termed it, is a good idea? That it was necessary at all?"

Oh, so that was it? Some misplaced concern for the mental well-being of Kakashi's trio of brats?

He shrugged, turning over an especially juicy-looking morsel that was threatening to burn on one side. "I'd say it was time to make them aware of the realities of shinobi life before they got surprised by them the hard way. And sex in all its variations inevitably is part of such a life."

Umino shook his head in disbelief and picked up his chopsticks again, clearly not quite able yet to come up with a response. In lieu of that, he paid attention that his vegetables and meat didn't get an unhealthy one-sided tan, and dipped a piece of shiitake into one of the sauces provided. Hot chili, with maybe a dash of vinegar or sugar in it, from the looks of it.

Kakashi preferred mixing his own sauces, which he subsequently did with the ingredients provided. A side effect was that it gave Umino time to collect his thoughts.

The chuunin began again after having swallowed his first bite. "You know that seduction cases go straight to ANBU."

It was a statement rather than a question, but Kakashi nodded anyway to show he was listening.

"And that they are still too young to understand things like mission sex." Umino's cheeks colored slightly, but he forged ahead when he received another nod. "And that the likelihood of encountering rape is astronomically small for genin? Hatake-san, there is a reason that this kind of talk is only given to chuunin and above, and that only by certified psychologists from the T&I section."

Kakashi raised an eyebrow. That was new to him. At least the T&I part. "And what would that reason be?" The first pieces of his meat were finally, _finally_ done, and he barely waited until it was cool enough to shove it in his mouth without ever dipping it into the sauce he had painstakingly mixed together. It tasted like it was still rare on the inside and it was sorely lacking salt, but he couldn't imagine anything taste better at the moment.

Umino was a bit taken aback by his enjoyment of the food, but answered nonetheless. Agitatedly. Defensive. "Because they need to be capable of dealing with the psychological fall-out of such revelations! They have hardly scraped at the darker sides of shinobi life, and then you spring on them something like that?"

Swallowing his mouthful, Kakashi employed the same tricks that he had used on Sakura earlier that day. He kept his body language open and non-aggressive, for once not displaying his usual look of boredom on his face. He leaned forward, but only far enough to seem attentive and not threatening. Sincere. "Tell me, sensei, do you think it is better to coddle them for as long as possible in order to not scare off those that wouldn't have made it anyway? They are genin, but they are also shinobi, and they deserve to know what they are getting into if they choose to follow that path."

Umino closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose. The white scar tissue stretched and wrinkled a bit, but not as naturally as the surrounding, undamaged skin. "But they are human, too, and it takes humans a while to grow up. And while growing up, their ability to handle things grows too. If you burden them too much too young, they will break under the weight before they got the time to grow strong enough. Hatake-san, I realize that you yourself are probably one of the most prominent counter-examples of being able to shoulder adult burdens at an incredibly young age, but children are fragile. It takes a lot less to damage them irreparably than one would think."

Kakashi took his time to sample from the enoki and the softening egg-plant on the grill, dipping them in his sauce and deciding that it needed more sesame oil. He didn't quite know how to say what he wanted to without offending the chuunin and make him unreceptive to further conversation.

Finally, he sighed. "Umino-san, can you tell me of even one high-level ninja that hasn't been… damaged outside his missions? Pain gives you an incentive to get stronger, and the greater the pain the greater the incentive. I am not sure if it's possible to become a high-level ninja without having been hurt severely, and that not from missions. There needs to be a drive that sends you out into the field over and over again, despite having lost team-mates, despite having just recovered from being tortured, despite knowing that this just might be your last mission. And to create such characters, you can't worry too much about damaging them or not. Either they cope and grow stronger, or they break and look for something else."

It was that simple. Kakashi himself was the best example. He had survived his father's death, Obito's death, Minato-sensei's death, and every single time he had pulled himself together and turned it into a single-minded focus to become better. Faster. Stronger. He might not have chosen the sanest path; he might be rough and scarred where his wounds had healed crookedly or were still festering deep inside, but he was _good_. He doubted he would be as good if he hadn't had a reason to push himself over his limits time and again.

He couldn't quite decide whether Umino looked shocked, sad, pitying, or sick to his stomach. Maybe a bit of all four. The chuunin took a deep breath and stirred his things on the grill platter again. Kakashi didn't miss that he hadn't eaten anything yet beyond the first shiitake mushroom. Umino didn't look up. "Dare I ask how young you were when you got… the shinobi version?"

Kakashi shrugged deliberately nonchalantly, chewing on another piece of meat. This time not so rare anymore and with sauce. Even better. "Nine. But I grew up in war-time, so I already knew most of it. At least theoretically."

"_Nine_," Umino repeated with a strangled voice, and finally saved one of his pork cubes from being burned to cinders on the grill.

Kakashi didn't think an answer was required, so they kept eating in silence for a while. Kakashi was making steady headway through his dishes, Umino not so much. The chuunin seemed more interested in dragging his food through the sauce and painting wet patterns onto his plate. Kakashi left him to his thoughts.

When the silence began to turn uncomfortable, he cleared his throat and switched to a lighter atmosphere. "Well, be that as it may – Umino-sensei, I have also asked you here because I have a few questions of my own."

The chuunin looked up startled, finally giving up on rearranging his food in ever new patterns. A slight hint of dread crossed his face before it was merely curious and friendly again. "What is it, Hatake-san?"

He decided to start out easy, to not give the poor man a heart-attack right away. "The talk today unearthed some interesting information. Something about Naruto using his sexy-no-jutsu to show the rest of the class what female genitalia looked like?"

As expected, Umino choked and turned bright red. After he recovered from his coughing fit, he managed to stammer, "Eh, yes, that certainly was an interesting class. I could barely get to him before he made true on his threat…" He looked at Kakashi incredulously. "He actually told you about that?" Then, more to himself, "Probably been boasting about it, too…"

Kakashi chuckled. "Well, you got it in one. He certainly complained loudly enough about your reaction. But, why I was asking, because his henge is so realistic to mimic a female body down to such details, it might be necessary to give him the Talk, the non-shinobi-version, for the other side, too. I don't want to think of the complications if he decides to test out whether men can get pregnant that way…" Hook.

Umino's blush turned a shade darker and the man hastily took a sip from his tea. "And you want me to take care of that?"

"Well, you seem to have experience in explaining the mechanics of sex, and I think we've already established that I might not be the right person to handle such sensitive topics…" Line.

And Kakashi really wouldn't have taken any care not to scar his student permanently. Better to turn him off completely from experimenting with a female body than having to deal with the consequences. Maybe Kakashi even would have gotten Sato Ayako to do it, or Anko. Probably would have stuck for eternity that way, too.

But fortunately for Naruto's psychological health, Umino took it upon himself to fulfill the duty. "A-alright, I'll do it."

Sinker.

Kakashi smiled brightly at the chuunin, as if he hadn't planned for that outcome from the very beginning. "You will? Thank you very much, sensei. But, there is one more thing our talk today uncovered." He turned serious so abruptly that Umino was completely thrown off-balance. "Do you, or have you ever, suspected Haruno Sakura of having a history of sexual abuse?"

"W-what!?" the chuunin stammered, eyes disproportionally wide. Almost immediately, his surprise turned into anger though. "Explain."

So the teacher didn't know anything. Kakashi recounted the earlier events, and how he had come to his conclusion. He had hoped that Umino would tell him that Sakura's reaction was normal and exactly the reason why one shouldn't tell young and easily scared girls about the reality of shinobi life, but sadly the teacher didn't deliver.

Instead, Umino was just as uncertain as him what those signs could mean, and that maybe Sato Ayako, her kunoichi class teacher, would know more.

About that what Kakashi had already figured out on his own. He had hoped the teacher could tell him more.

They finished their meal in silence, each of them trailing after their own thoughts. Kakashi paid without protest, and they parted with the promise that Kakashi would look into it. He might be of the opinion that pain was a good motivator and that good shinobi needed to be scarred, but nobody had said that those wounds had to heal on their own without any help. Sometimes they just ran too deep for that.

Well, seemed like he had a certain kunoichi teacher to find, after all.

* * *

1.)Edamame: baby soy beans cooked in their pods

2.)Enoki: small, white mushrooms with a small cap and a long stem. When designing the characters, Kishimoto was debating to name Kakashi not Kakashi but Enoki, for his looks…

* * *

**A/N:** Don't blame me for all the food – I was hungry when I wrote that…

Seems that I didn't manage to finish everything in the second chapter, after all. But the third should do the trick for real, this time. Honestly.

As usual, please tell me what you thought of this chapter. I like hearing where I can improve.

Sakiku


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N:** I'm incredibly sorry for the long delay. No, I haven't forgotten this story. Yes, I have been working on it the whole time. No, this isn't everything that I've got, but this is the only point where I can break it off before the finale. And that one is still giving me a lot of trouble. However, I didn't want to make you wait another eight months without any signs of life from this story, so… here's a short chapter.

**

* * *

Chapter 3**

Kakashi sighed, wandering idly through the darkening streets of Konoha, his nose buried safely inside his ever-present book.

If he hadn't been taught during his ANBU training that eliminating inconclusive leads was progress, too, he would have termed his past two and a half hours as wasted time.

In short, Ayako didn't know anything.

At least it had only cost Kakashi an arm and a leg to find that out. Well, more like two arms and a foot, but who counted.

Apparently, Satou Ayako was currently moving because her old apartment manager had thrown her out. (Kakashi didn't need to ask why, because the jounin and chuunin grapevines had been buzzing for days about a certain exhibitionist academy teacher's bondage misadventure that had somehow resulted in a flooded bathroom, a hole in the outside wall, and a burned down kitchen. Nobody had had the guts to ask how exactly she had managed that.)

Two and a half hours ago, Kakashi had arrived just at the right moment to pitch in with the heavy lifting of furniture and moving cartons, according to her. And she certainly hadn't been beyond a bit of extortion to get him to agree.

_Well, sorry, Hatake-san, but with all that stuff around here that needs to go into my new apartment, I can't really think. If you help me, I'm sure I'll get it done today, and then I'll be able to devote my mind to other things, like answering your questions._

That was where Kakashi's two arms had come in.

He had no clue how she had managed to fit so many boxes of _stuff_ into the tiny one-and-a-half room apartment. At least she had done the packing bit already, and it was only the moving he had been recruited for. The boxes had been taped shut and labeled, and he hadn't cared enough to sneak a peak into what exactly he was moving.

Well, except for that one suspiciously light box that had been labled 'underwear'. There was an on-going bet in Konoha to see whether all of Ayako's panties were those racy, blood red thongs that sometimes peeked up beneath the ridiculously short skirts she wore during her off-hours. To his huge disappointment though, it had been curtains, _curtains_ of all things, that had been inside. And the knowing smirk she had thrown him had put him off opening other boxes to check their contents.

His foot had fallen victim to Ayako setting down a box without looking first. And it had been a very heavy box, Kakashi could vouch for, because it contained her training weights as she had so sweetly informed him. Coincidentally, it had been the very first box she had handled after discovering Kakashi had snuck a peek at her curtains, but Kakashi was a firm believer in coincidences.

…

Oh, who was he kidding. It was good that Ayako and Anko didn't get along, because it would become very dangerous for all moderately good-looking guys to live in Konoha if those two sadists teamed up.

So, anyway, Ayako hadn't been able to give him a clear 'yes' or 'no', either, and that wasn't a good sign in Kakashi's books. He had hoped that a woman would be able to make more sense of Sakura's reaction, especially a woman who was used to being around excitable preteen girls six days a week.

But no, it couldn't be that easy, could it? Instead, she had contributed a few scenarios he hadn't even considered yet. Like Sakura not having been raped, but someone having told her vivid horror tales. Or that she had witnessed something and misunderstood. Or that she _hadn't_ misunderstood.

At least she didn't display any signs of being in an ongoing situation. If anything had happened, it had been a one-time event. Probably. Unless she was really good at suppressing memories.

He sighed once again, absent-mindedly turning a page in his book and moving his eyes perfunctorily across the lines. He wasn't really reading anything, but he had a reputation to maintain. Who knew what the reaction would be if Sharingan no Kakashi walked around Konoha without his trusty Icha Icha Paradise, with a troubled expression to top it off?

As far as he could see, there was only one avenue left: talk to the source of the problem itself. His feet seemed to have come to that solution quite a bit earlier than Kakashi's head, because he found that he was already well on his way to the Harunos' residence.

He snorted to himself. Seemed like his feet were way smarter than him. Even if one of them was quite bruised and probably would turn a nice shade of green and blue tomorrow, thanks to Ayako.

Before Kakashi really knew it, he was already standing in front of a moderately sized two-leveled house, having raised his hand to knock on the door. There were lights on downstairs, so there had to be someone awake. Not that he thought that people went to bed as soon as it got dark, but one never knew. The days were quite long, and the sun had already vanished behind the huge trees surrounding Konoha.

"Yes, hello? Can I help you, shinobi-san?"

Blinking, Kakashi focused on the door that had just opened in his face. A man, brownish blond hair, mid-thirties, moderately thin without any noteworthy muscle tone, was standing there, looking at him curiously.

Kakashi looked back just as curiously. He had always been bad at seeing relations in faces, but such a prominent forehead enhanced by widow's peaks… "Ah, excuse me, but are you Haruno-san, Sakura's father?"

"Yes. You are?"

Kakashi blinked again, a bit unused to not being recognized on sight with his trademark looks. At least not by his student's… parents…

Oh. He had never introduced himself to them when he had gotten his three little brats, had he? Since neither Sasuke nor Naruto had any living relatives (except for a certain infamous, psychopathic missing-nin brother), Kakashi had totally forgotten that Sakura wasn't as unlucky. And that they were civilians that didn't mix and mingle with the village's ninja on a daily basis. And that they probably had absolutely no clue who he was.

He nodded towards Sakura's father in apology. "I'm sorry for not introducing myself sooner. I am Hatake Kakashi, your daughter's genin teacher. Is Sakura still up?"

His request gained him a narrow look just shy of being hostile. Hm. Maybe he should have talked to them sooner? But the existence of parents opened up another avenue of investigation. Maybe he wouldn't have to talk to Sakura at all.

Haruno senior looked at him critically. "So you are the leader of Sakura's cell?" The 'you don't look like much to me, and I've heard plenty of bad things about you' went unsaid, but the pause remained. "If it isn't important, please come back tomorrow. She went to bed early today, and she's likely already asleep."

"That is fine." Kakashi smiled as if he hadn't gotten the non-verbal sub-text. It wasn't like he was new to such a frigid reception. "I wanted to talk to you and your wife first, anyway. May I come in?"

He could see how reluctant Haruno senior was to let him in, but did it nonetheless out of courtesy. A nice and refreshing change from getting doors slammed in his face, like Genma and Asuma had done on several occasions.

Alright, he might have appeared to bother them at three in the morning because, horror oh horrors, he had run out of smut to read. But that still wasn't a reason for people to slam the door in his face, was it? At least they'd had the courtesy to argue with him long and loud enough to make him forget those memories that his subconscious had insisted on chewing up in the form of horrific nightmares.

Haruno residence looked as respectable and well-maintained from the inside as it did from the outside. Quite contrary to Kakashi's own living quarters, if he had to say so. Not that Kakashi lived in a shabby building or that he was a slob, but it was visible that he was frequently absent, and for long periods of time at that. And when he did come home he was too exhausted to do more than the bare minimums of cooking and laundry. Other housework fell a bit short compared to such necessities.

"In here."

Kakashi trailed after Haruno to a living room that actually looked lived in. A nice and comfortable couch, an even nicer and more comfortable-looking chair, several potted plants, a low coffee table, creamy white carpet, pictures on the wall. A woman who couldn't be anything but Sakura's mother, was already sitting on the couch but got up when Kakashi and Haruno entered.

"Hello?" A bit of confusion and curiosity tinted her voice, but she didn't look scared. She was moderately beautiful; with a bit of make-up and properly styled, Kakashi bet that she'd be quite a looker, even if she didn't have the well-trained body of a kunoichi.

Kakashi nodded to her. "Excuse my interruption this late." It was clearly visible that she had been relaxing after the strains of the day, perhaps hoping for a quiet evening with her husband. "I am Hatake Kakashi, and I am the jounin instructor of your daughter's genin cell. It is nice to meet you, Haruno-san."

There was polite interest in her eyes as she bowed slightly towards him. "A pleasure, Hatake-san. We have heard much about you from our daughter. Please, sit down. I will make some tea."

"I hope it hasn't been all bad…" Kakashi smiled sheepishly, wondering just what exactly Sakura had told her parents. Both about Kakashi and her missions. And how much they knew about shinobi life in general. "And, please, don't inconvenience yourself on my account. It is far too late for me to stay very long."

He was a bit surprised at himself that he was pulling out his manners like that. Hell, he wasn't even that polite with the Hokage. Then again, he'd never had to ask Sarutobi-sama whether his child might have been raped.

Sakura's father frowned. "Stay here, Kumiko. And you, Hatake-san, at least take a seat. Talking is easier done sitting down." He gestured towards the chair, while he and his wife took to the sofa.

It was clear that he was less than happy with Kakashi and his easy-going manner. Quite a typical reaction of civilians when in company of shinobi - they knew that they couldn't come close to matching a ninja's fighting abilities, so they tried to establish their superiority in other ways. Especially men were susceptible to such alpha posturing. Even more so in places where they felt they held some kind of advantage. Like being on home territory. Or having someone come to them as supplicant. Or having the age advantage.

Kakashi was quite well-versed in those games. Why, the land-lord of his last apartment had been of exactly the same ilk.

So he sat down, pleasant as anything, and pretended he hadn't noticed any rudeness. "Thank you very much. Since I do not want to take up too much of your time, I'll immediately come to the issue why I'm here. Has Sakura ever been violated sexually?"

A sucker-punch wouldn't have been any more effective. Haruno senior wheezed like someone had forced all air out of his lungs, and his wife turned pale as a sheet. "W-what?"

Kakashi shrugged a bit nonchalantly, but his tone remained serious. Just like the situation was. "Today, the topic of forced intercourse came up during our team time. It was just mentioned, no details or pictures or horror stories or anything. And for that, I thought she reacted a bit too extremely, practically terrified." He rubbed the side of his head, looking away from them. A bit of uncertainty and discomfort in his demeanor would be well-received about now. "But I admit, I don't know a lot about how preteen girls usually react to such topics. So I asked her kunoichi sensei at the academy, Satou Ayako. She wasn't entirely sure either, whether Sakura's reaction was still within normal parameters, or whether there is something more. You are my last stop before I have to ask Sakura herself. And I don't want to put her through that unless absolutely necessary."

A pleading look rounded off his act. Not that he was deliberately putting on a performance. But his awkward social development during his youth had made it necessary to learn facial expressions and body langue on an almost entirely conscious level. Additionally, he had been trained to use them to utmost effect. So, even if he didn't intentionally tap into those skills, his training was so ingrained that it was always there in the background.

"You think Sakura-chan has been…" Haruno Kumiko didn't finish her sentence, clamping a horrified hand across her mouth.

"No." Kakashi shook his head. Time to draw back, now that he had confronted them with the worst case scenario. "At least, I don't think so. But her reaction was a bit too extreme for there to be absolutely nothing at all. Now, it could be something as innocuous as a couple of children trying to scare each other by telling vivid horror tales. Sakura seems sensitive enough to take such things to heart. On the other hand, it could be other things as well. As her teacher, it is my duty to make sure she is alright. If necessary, I can recommend a few good mind healers."

The two Harunos exchanged a look. It was a mixture of concern and alarm. Haruno senior frowned. "Hatake-san, don't you think we would have taken our daughter to a healer ourselves if we thought she had any problems? I don't like your implications at all. If you don't think she is fit for the job as a shinobi then say so, but keep your accusations to yourself. Now what exactly do you want from us?"

Apparently, his strategy hadn't worked as intended. Hostile much? "I wasn't implying anything, Haruno-san. Sakura is a very intelligent and talented young woman who has tremendous potential if she manages to focus more on her work than on boys. I merely saw that Sakura reacted in a way that was outside her regular psychological profile, and I wanted to make sure that there isn't anything serious behind it which could endanger her psychological health or her shinobi career before it even started properly. From your reaction though, you don't know of anything?"

"No." Her mother frowned. "If there was something and she hasn't told us, what would be signs to look for?"

Kakashi pursed his lips thoughtfully and thought back to what the mind healers had told him. What had been the PTSD symptoms again… "Any irrational fear of certain locations or people?"

"No."

"Does she react strangely to some every-day-seeming situations, sounds or smells?"

"No."

"Reoccurring nightmares, once a week or more frequent?"

"No."

"Trouble sleeping at all for a period of more than a week, and for no discernible reason?"

"No."

"Obsessive or compulsive behavior?"

"No."

"Has her character ever changed for no discernible reason? Like withdrawing from her friends, suddenly clinging to her friends, severe feelings of insecurity, starting a new routine, anything?"

This time, the answer took longer to come. At least they were taking their time to think instead of saying 'no' categorically, as he had almost feared.

"Well," Sakura's mother started slowly, "when she was about five or six years old, she started to retreat into herself because she was constantly getting teased for having a large forehead. But then she met Yamanaka Ino, and the girl drew her out of her shell again. The only other big break I could think of would be about a year ago, when both she and Ino decided to go for Uchiha Sasuke (1). Ino and she had been friends forever, and then, from one day to the next, they were bitter rivals.

"But other than that?" She shrugged helplessly. "No, I can't recall any other events. You, Akito?"

Her husband shook his head. "No. But with my work hours, I only ever saw her for a couple-"

Kakashi suddenly interrupted him with a raised hand and a sign for silence. He listened intently for what had caught his attention - the groan of the refrigerator as it turned itself on? The sound of people talking outside in the street? When he heard soft steps padding down some stairs, he turned around to look at the door.

"What is it, Hatake-san?" Kumiko asked, alerted by Kakashi's strange behavior.

Kakashi frowned thoughtfully. "It is Sakura. She's coming downstairs. Her chakra feels agitated. Has been feeling agitated for a while, actually. You know what she wants?"

The two Harunos exchanged a glance. "No. You must have very sharp senses, Hatake-san. I didn't hear anything."

"Part and parcel of being shinobi," Kakashi shrugged. "It is a good idea to be aware of your surroundings."

It ensured a longer life expectancy. But he didn't tell that to the Harunos, because they seemed like the typical civilians. Their kind never took well to the realities of shinobi life, and were absolutely horrified about the more dangerous and bloody details.

Once again he wondered how much they knew about their daughter's chosen career.

Before anyone else could say something, the door opened and Sakura entered. She was clad in a long, pink nightgown and blinking owlishly at the bright light. It was clear that she had just woken up.

"Mom, Dad?" She took a second glance and almost did a double-take. "_Kakashi-sensei_? What are you doing here?"

* * *

(1) Sakura and Ino starting to go after Sasuke only a year ago: I think it's nonsense that they've been gunning for Sasuke ever since the massacre. For one, I largely doubt that 8-year-olds already have that kind of drive. They might find a boy cute, but that's about it. For another, even at the age of 12 it's very rare for crushes to last longer than a few months. The only reason that 15-year-old Sakura's still 'in love' with Sasuke in the manga is that mangas need a True Love component (as if NaruHina wasn't enough already). And True Love (or better yet: Tragic Love, since Sasuke is a villain and Sakura is good) doesn't encourage switching boyfriends every couple of months. Ino, who obviously isn't Sasuke's Tragic Love, lost her interest in him soon enough, didn't she?

**

* * *

A/N:** Well, now that Ayako-sensei and Sakura's parents are out of the way, there's only one source left: Sakura herself. And yes, that is what's giving me all that trouble.

For one, somehow my Kakashi's turning out to assume the worst, and overreact a tad with the signs given (the way he handled the Harunos was… less than diplomatic). Somehow, my Kakashi's convincing himself more and more that Sakura's been raped - which is not what I intended when I began with the first chapter. It would be too much of a let-down now if everything turned out to be a false alarm.

For another, I'm good friends with a girl who _was_ raped (and suppressed it thoroughly enough that the first memories came back in flash-backs years later - she's still not done dealing with it), and so I'm highly sensitive to that topic. I'm so afraid that I'm going to trivialize things that I'm blocking myself left and right. And I don't mean 'trivialize' in the sense of not putting enough angst or realistic descriptions in there. I mean it in the sense of using rape simply as a plot device. And that's just about the very last thing I want to happen.

So, although I've got about the same amount of words as this chapter again, it's probably going to be another long wait. Sorry about that.

Sakiku


	4. Chapter 4

Last Time:

Before anyone else could say something, the door opened and Sakura entered. She was clad in a long, pink nightgown and blinked owlishly at the bright light. It was clear that she had just woken up.

"Mom, Dad?" She took a second glance and almost did a double-take. "_Kakashi-sensei_? What are you doing here?"

* * *

**Chapter 4**

Sakura self-consciously ran her fingers through her hair, clearly embarrassed about her state of undress. Kakashi waved at her nonchalantly. "Yo. I was talking to your parents, introducing myself and such. Thought it would be a good idea, now that you are one of my students."

Sakura rolled her eyes. "Late as always, sensei. We've been your team for four months already!"

"Even more of a reason to do it then, isn't it?" Kakashi smiled one of his patented eye-smiles and sniffed the air inconspicuously.

Despite Sakura's seemingly nonchalant attitude, he could smell the cold sweat on her and the stench of old fear. Her breathing was elevated, her hands were trembling slightly, and her eyes were a bit too wild for her to just have woken from regular sleep. Not to mention that her hair was quite mussed, as if she had been tossing and turning quite vigorously. And her chakra was calming only gradually.

All signs pertaining to a nightmare.

"You're still up?" he asked as harmlessly as possible. "It's almost ten-thirty. In Wave country, you always dropped off at nine, nine-thirty at the latest."

Shuffling her bare feet, Sakura averted her eyes. "Couldn't sleep."

Apparently the Harunos caught the lie as easily as Kakashi did because they exchanged a brief glance. Her mother got up and guided her to the couch. "Then sit down with us for a while. I'll bring you a sweater, and then I'm going to make us some hot tea. That will help you calm down."

"Thanks, Mom," Sakura smiled tremulously. Sitting next to her father, she shrunk into him for warmth which her thin nightgown certainly wasn't made for.

"Mmh, I'd suggest some hot sake. Works better." Kakashi kept his face so uber-bored that even the Harunos, who weren't very well-versed in reading his expressions, caught on.

"Sensei!" Sakura's half-hearted glare was less outraged than amused. A tiny smile was playing around her mouth.

Raising his eyebrow in a parody of insulted surprise, Kakashi shrugged. "Then again, if you don't like sake, tea will have to do."

"Yes, tea will do just fine." Haruno Akito gave him a hard stare that was only partly played. "It's never a good idea to start drinking."

Thankfully, that was the exact moment that Kimiko chose to interrupt them with the sweater for Sakura. It was a large, gray one that looked a bit bulky, but which was very warm without doubt.

"Thanks, Mom."

Sakura put it on without protest, which surprised Kakashi a bit, to be honest. The Sakura he had gotten to know was very conscious of her appearance, and would have never been caught dead in such clothes on their Wave mission.

Then again, this time there was no Sasuke anywhere in the vicinity, so that might be the reason.

"Kakashi-sensei?"

"Hm?" He hadn't realized that he had spaced out while listening to Sakura's mother make tea in the kitchen, and that an uncomfortable silence had settled over the living room.

Sakura nearly growled under her breath. "Why are you here?"

Then again, the growl was only skin-deep, and he could see the anxiety simmering beneath. Especially when her father was looking at her as if trying to see the bottom of her soul. Kakashi nearly rolled his eyes. Civilians just had no common sense. It was understandable that Haruno senior was trying to figure out if everything was alright with his daughter, but didn't he realize that he was scaring her?

"Mmh, you do know that it is my job to make sure that you're not only alright physically, but mentally as well?" Kakashi mused.

To be honest, he should rather be working on Naruto and Sasuke if he followed that maxim, but well... he already knew what was wrong with them. And that they had reached something of an equilibrium with their past trauma. If he thought that Sasuke would go through with it, Kakashi would recommend a mind-healer to him. But despite being Sasuke's jounin sensei, he couldn't force Sasuke to comply, and neither could a mind-healer. Well, not unless ordered by the Hokage. However, Sarutobi-sama was very well-known in certain circles for his policy of non-interference, and Kakashi doubted he'd issue such an order now when he hadn't after the massacre.

Anyway, he'd probably have a lot more success with Sakura than the other two hard-headed morons on his team. A big hurray for growing up with a family. Or being a girl. Or coming from a civilian background. Whatever it was that made Sakura much more susceptible for guidance, because age definitely wasn't it. Kakashi didn't delude himself – at his little minions' age, he had been just as idiotic and stubborn concerning his way of dealing with his past.

Sakura frowned. She probably felt insulted by Kakashi insinuating she wasn't alright mentally. "I'm fine, sensei."

As predicted.

Kakashi merely smiled. "Then of course you didn't just have a nightmare because of the things we talked about this morning."

"I didn't-" She stopped at the look he gave her. Her father wrapped an arm around her shoulder and squeezed briefly. "Well, alright, I did," she admitted reluctantly. She couldn't meet Kakashi's eye. "But what exactly did you think was going to happen, sensei? That I'd sleep like a baby after that?"

Well, _now_ she glared at him. Kind of bipolar, her behavior. At least, more bipolar than usually. "No, I didn't expect that. Not the way you reacted. Your reaction was just a bit... extreme this morning."

She frowned. "Extreme? How?"

"Mmh. It looked almost like you were having a flash-back there. Unresponsive, very scared. More scared than I thought you would be if you had no experience with sex and rape."

If the glare he received from the adult Harunos hadn't clued him in, the way Sakura stiffened would have. Obviously, he had been too blunt. Again. Civilians, he had to remember. Civilians. They weren't used to talking about sex and violence and psychological trauma as just another part of daily life. And, oh joy, it was his job to guide Sakura away from that kind of mind-set.

"I don't – I didn't – " Sakura stuttered, and Kakashi cut her off.

"Maa, maa, I never said you did. I just said that it _looked_ like that. If nothing's happened, that's absolutely fine. More than fine, actually." He took his time to eye-smile at her. "But if there _is_ something wrong, you should know that we aren't going to leave you alone with that, and that there's help for dealing with such stuff."

Sakura obviously was embarrassed to be caught in the focus of both her parents and Kakashi. Just why couldn't civilians stare less... obviously?

"_Did_ something happen, darling?" her mother asked, with the kind of fear that would fit a full-out invasion of Konoha. And of course, Sakura picked up on it and interpreted it the way her mother never meant it: that it would be very, very bad to say 'Yes'.

She shook her head and laughed weakly."No, mom, there's nothing. Just – I just got scared. Read too many books. And Kakashi-sensei was quite... blunt." By that time, she had composed herself enough to shoot him a remarkably honest glower.

Kakashi could have predicted that answer word for word, especially the way it didn't tell him anything. Damn it, the Harunos had blown it. He wasn't going to get anything out of Sakura in the presence of her parents. If he pushed for more, he'd either alienate her family completely, or she'd dig in on that negative answer to the point that she wouldn't tell him the truth even if they were alone, just to keep up the pretense that the 'no' was true.

He made sure his visible eye smiled, clapped his hands and nodded. "Alright, that's all I wanted to know. I am sorry for scaring you like that, Sakura; it just shows that you are more mature than those other two knuckle-heads. Things like rape and sexual violence should never be taken lightly." He got up. "Thank you for having me over so late, Haruno-san, and have a good night. I can see myself out. Don't forget our team training tomorrow at seven, yes, Sakura?"

She scowled at him, most of her old fire back. "Shouldn't you try and remember that yourself, sensei?"

He just laughed and waved a sloppy salute over his shoulder as he left the room. "Night, Sakura."

"Night, Sensei."

Of course, he wasn't allowed to see himself out. Sakura's mother accompanied him to the door, which he had counted upon. He didn't say anything though until she made the first move out of Sakura's ear-shot.

"Is she really alright, Hatake-san?" she asked anxiously, like Kakashi thought parents were supposed to be. Not that he knew; his mother had died shortly after his birth, his father had always been on missions, and then he had killed himself. The closest Kakashi had come to the experience had been with Minato-sensei, and Minato-sensei had first and foremost been his teacher. And Kakashi had been so hardened at that time that he hadn't allowed Minato to be what he might have been.

"Aa." He made his eye-smile even more obvious than he normally did, deliberately relaxing all his muscles into a position of trustworthy openness. "Again, I'm very sorry for scaring you like that, Haruno-san. It was only a very, very small chance that anything was wrong at all, and I guess I accidentally made a mountain out of a molehill." More sheepishness that seemed to do its job in calming down the woman. "I think the shinobi mentality of planning for the worst got the better of me. I asked around, and both her chuunin teachers assured me that it wasn't unreasonable for mature girls like Sakura to have nightmares after a stressful day like this. Give her a day or two, and she'll be right as rain."

He wasn't half as convinced of his words as he made out, but first priority was getting her parents off Sakura's back. Kakashi cursed himself a bit for being so blunt at the beginning; he hadn't quite anticipated such a strong current of unconscious actions and reactions between Sakura and her parents. He should have, really, because it was only natural for parents to be concerned about their child. But he had been taken off-guard by the way Sakura's entire attitude fed off her parents' emotions, and how she had been the nice, uncomplicated civilians' daughter she had finally started to develop away from during their Wave country mission. She was still too dependent, unconsciously trying to mold herself into the perfectly civilian daughter they apparently still thought her to be.

Her mother still wasn't quite convinced. "Do you really think so?"

Kakashi nodded. "Yes. Give her time. Again, I'm sorry for my initial blunder."

"Alright. Have a good evening, Hatake-san."

"You too."

Without doubt, her parents were going to push her more on the topic. Kakashi just hoped that his words had taken enough heat out of the situation that they wouldn't push Sakura into a complete denial. _If_ anything had happened. The next step was Sakura's to make; until then, Kakashi was going to pretend that he had completely believed her denial.

And if she didn't take his apparent mis-diagnosis of her reaction as a reason to research post-traumatic stress syndrome all on her own, Kakashi was sure he could point her that way without making her suspicious.

Sighing, he took to the roof-tops. Teens and their antics. He just knew that this was fate's revenge for Kakashi giving Minato such a hard time during his own teen years.

–

When Sakura cornered him alone two weeks later, Kakashi didn't sigh. She had been a bit skittish the entire time, not enough to alert her oblivious team-mates (Kakashi wondered which one of the boys was the more oblivious one), but definitely enough to make him keep a covert eye on her. The fact that she had started to show first signs of sleep deprivation was quite damning as well.

"Kakashi-sensei?"

"Hn?"

"Is it really possible for the mind to suppress traumatic events so well that the person doesn't even remember they ever happened? Without genjutsu or mind techniques, I mean."

And there it was. He still didn't sigh; instead, he kept his body language relaxed and sent her a mildly curious glance. "Yeah. Mind control techniques that make people forget mostly take advantage of that natural defense mechanism. The only difference is that with jutsus it's much more unlikely for the hidden stuff to unearth itself again, be it in the form of flash-backs or dreams or other symptoms."

She nodded slowly, as if connecting it to knowledge she had already assimilated. Kakashi had kept tabs on her book readings, and she had certainly borrowed enough books on the topic that it shouldn't be anything new for her.

She asked more questions in that vein, of how it was possible for the brain to do something like that, why such a mechanism had evolved, and so on and so forth. She was so intent on not talking about the real issue that she didn't even realize when he started steering them to his apartment. If this ended up where he thought it would end, he certainly didn't want to have that conversation out in the streets.

Sakura was able to keep up her babble even through being invited into his home, but the nervousness in her body language increased. Kakashi made tea for them, offered her the only chair his one-room-apartment had, and settled himself on the counter of his kitchenette.

"So, what's the occasion for all those questions?" he finally asked before her increasing nervousness could convince her to run out on him.

She froze, hands wrapped around the tea cup. Her eyes were wide and looked bruised due to the dark rings beneath them. She had tried to cover them with make-up, but the paint hadn't survived a strenuous day of training. "What – what do you mean, sensei?"

Kakashi allowed himself the sigh he had suppressed until then. "I can see that you've been getting little sleep lately, and all those questions about memory repression weren't very subtle. You've had more nightmares?"

Her fingers twitched, fluttering towards the hot porcelain of her cup and away again just as quickly. Her eyes flitted anywhere but him in a desperate attempt to find something to cling to. "Yeah," she admitted quietly, but didn't go on.

"You think it's something more?" he prompted her.

She shrugged listlessly, not meeting his eyes. "I – I don't know. It's always the same. I need to be quiet. Can't make a sound, because then he'd find out I'm here, and... Sometimes there's coughing and screaming, a woman, and I still mustn't move or make any sound... He says to be quiet..."

"He?"

She shook her head. "Don't know. Some guy. I never see his face. I never see much at all."

Well, that didn't sound very promising. "Have you had similar nightmares before?"

She nervously tapped her lips with her index finger. "Can't remember any. Not that one, in any case. I don't – As soon as I close my eyes, I can almost hear him tell me to be quiet, but... Nothing ever really happens to me, you know, sensei? I'm just so afraid, and Nothing. Ever. Happens!"

Kakashi blinked. She was working herself into quite a frenzy, starting to fall apart on him. "And why is that so bad?" he asked calmly.

"Because – Because I don't know!" She threw her hands in the air but shrank back into herself immediately afterwards. "I don't know why I'm dreaming this, if I'm just going insane or if there's more behind it, if it's going to get worse, if it's – I hate not knowing what is wrong with me."

She was pale. Very pale. Her eyes were flickering around nervously, not looking quite daring to meet Kakashi's.

Finally, his student inhaled and asked with tremors in her voice, "Kakashi-sensei, I just don't know, I can't… can't… I don't want to… see these things, when I don't even know what they are…"

Kakashi nodded slowly, projecting a lot more calm and confidence than he felt. He knew little of how to heal people, less of how to do that psychologically. What he knew was how to break, rend, tear, kill people. Then again, that already gave him a hint or two of what _not_ to do. And that was letting anyone see he didn't know how to deal with the situation when he was in charge.

He shrugged. "Well, there are plenty of mind healers at the hospital. They specialize in dealing with psychological trauma; they'll know how to approach your problem best. I think there might be one or two civilians, too, who treat such problems, but medic nin are better."

He grimaced briefly, so briefly that Sakura didn't catch it. Medic-nin were better because they had more experience. There hardly was a ninja without any traumatic memories, so they got plenty of practice. Then again, they only got the hardest cases, those inches from breaking. Maybe their rough and jaded bedside manner wasn't the right one for a scared little genin.

He continued. "Then there are the Yamanaka. You are friends with Inoichi's daughter, aren't you? I'm sure that he'd agree to do a mind-walk if I or you asked him."

He went on before Sakura could voice the protest he could see building on her face. Apparently the Yamanakas were a sensitive topic to her. Were she and - Ino the girl was called - still cross with each other? Because of their ridiculous rivalry over Sasuke, who wasn't interested in them anyway? "The only way to uncover potentially buried memories I know of is using genjutsu, but I wouldn't recommend that. The family of genjutsu that delves into memory like that is mainly used for… less wholesome purposes. Additionally, they won't help with the underlying problem of how to deal with it."

He saw Sakura shudder, but she didn't quite catch the implication. She wasn't used enough to shinobi life to make the connection to torture and interrogation techniques. However, they kept quiet and let Sakura deal with the situation.

She fiddled with her hands in her lap, biting her bloodless lip. "Sensei, I… I need to know what these things are. I don't want to involve Ino or her parents if it's just a silly nightmare, and I can always go to a mind-healer if it turns out to be something really bad, but… Sensei, do those genjutsu hurt?"

Kakashi nearly flinched at the hopeful look on Sakura's face, that there was a simple solution. There was more though. He nodded slowly. "Yes. The genjutsu itself doesn't hurt; it is the memories that will hurt. Once it drags up those memories, they are there in the forefront of your mind, no matter how bad they are. And for you to get such nightmares, they probably _will_ be bad. Also, whoever casts the jutsu will see the exact same thing you do. They will know everything you relive while under the technique."

"They will?" The hopeful look on her face wasn't quite what Kakashi had intended with his speech. Did she really…

"Kakashi-sensei, can you..?"

Yes, she did. He exhaled and slumped his shoulders. She actually wanted him to witness things that might be no more than a vivid childhood nightmare, but that might also go as far as her getting raped.

He rubbed his hands over his face, supporting the suddenly very heavy weight of his head with elbows planted on his knees.

"Sakura…" he began but trailed off again. He tried a different approach. "Yes, I do know the technique, but I don't think you realize what exactly you are asking for. If it is the worst case, I might be witnessing your rape. Do you really want to share something like that?"

Sakura couldn't meet his eyes; she only flinched at the word 'rape'. "I don't know... it's like... like, every time I close my eyes, I get so incredibly scared, and I know I must be quiet or he'll find me, and... Sensei, it feels so _real_. I can almost smell the moss and the dirty leaves, and... I think I hear someone crying and coughing. There's always that cough. It... it scares me, sensei."

Kakashi nodded slowly. "You think you're getting hurt in that... dream?"

Sakura shrugged, pale and holding on to her composure by a thread. "I don't know," she could only repeat.

She wrung her hands, looking anywhere but Kakashi. Pale, tense, but collected and sitting straight, head raised. She gathered herself, eyes wide and frightened. "Sensei, I need to know. Please."

Stubborn, determined. Kakashi raked his hand through his hair. Too stubborn maybe. He didn't think it was a good idea to rip everything to the forefront like the jutsu would do, especially when he had no idea how to deal with the fall-out. But now that he had already made the offer, he could hardly draw back. "Alright," he sighed.

Also, he could understand the need to know without involving anything resembling a healer or doctor. He would want to know, too, if it was him. Then again, there were some memories he had deliberately asked for to be blocked. Like the two weeks he had spent in the hands of Cloud during his third year as Inu. Or that one time he'd had to watch Tatsu get taken apart piece by piece, literally, on a botched-up scroll retrieval.

Tatsu would have been a good acquisition for Moritake's, if Kakashi had been able to take her with him when he had escaped. But she had broken somewhere between her fifth finger and her right foot. They had used a _saw_ on her. And Kakashi hadn't been able to do anything but watch because he had been tied right next to her. For some reason they hadn't touched him at all, only asked every time before they cut into her, if he didn't want to spare her by talking. She had looked so hopeful every time and so pleading, and she had screamed- begged- broken -

With practiced ease, Kakashi shoved the memory away. The mind healers had used a special technique to blunt the remembered feelings, to the point that he could look back on it like a horribly realistic movie. It laid limply in his memory, present if he thought of it, but not churning and festering and popping up in flash-backs every time he caught sight a saw-toothed object. Or heard a particular pitch of female scream.

Months and years of intensive trauma therapy abbreviated into one, nifty jutsu, because Konoha couldn't afford to let someone of Kakashi's caliber sit out until a more natural healing took place. It was a brutal jutsu, too, because it replayed the memory again and again, chakra gradually erasing the emotional high-points until everything fell within acceptable parameters. Until today, Kakashi couldn't look at Yamanaka Sentarou without remembering his merciless 'again', when Kakashi had come out of yet another repetition with the memory not blunted far enough.

He swore to himself that this wouldn't happen to Sakura. That nobody would muck around in her mind to stitch her back together like they had done with him. She had the time to do things the natural way. It took a lot longer, but… he didn't want to risk her breaking under the stress of the jutsu, like he almost had. Sometimes, the healing could be more painful than the injury. He just hoped that unearthing the memory in the first place wouldn't already break her.

But he was getting ahead of himself. Maybe it was just a dream. Maybe Sakura's memory wasn't that bad. Or maybe she had matured enough to be able to deal with it. Hopefully.

He sighed, trying to judge her determination. She looked afraid, but too stubborn to back down. Finally he relented. "Alright. We will need somewhere stable to sit down where we can keep skin contact. I need that to keep sending chakra into your system. The nape of your neck or your forehead would be best, but I can also work with a wrist, shoulder, wherever. You also need to be comfortable; outwardly it will seem like you're falling asleep, so it wouldn't be good if you fell off a chair or something like that."

Well, Ibiki did use that jutsu on people sitting on chairs, but he usually tied them up beforehand. Kakashi doubted Sakura would appreciate that.

Sakura smiled, huffed a tense laugh, then went back to gnawing on her lip. She looked around a bit haunted, and Kakashi quietly cursed himself. He didn't have a couch to lie down on, and neither did he have a reclining chair or something similar. His apartment was too small for that. They'd either have to sit on the tatami, or he could unroll his futon.

But – no. The futon would make Sakura feel too vulnerable, would have too many implications. Especially if the worst case had happened.

With a sigh, he slid off the counter, unearthed two zabuton from the same chest he stored his futon in during daytime, and dropped them into the corner. Leaning against the walls would have to be enough. He settled himself on one and motioned for her to join him.

Sakura sat down reluctantly on the other zabuton, their proximity allowing Kakashi to comfortably reach the back of her neck. He went through a long string of hand seals, nearly a hundred of them. Most interrogation jutsu were quite complicated because with them it wasn't so much the speed that counted but the precision and control.

His hands took on a slight bluish glow while he was still holding the last seal, and Sakura looked at him in a mixture of fear and awe. She was biting her lip and clenched her fists compulsively.

"Last chance to back out. If it's a traumatic memory, you _will_ relive it entirely, because that's the way the jutsu works. And I'll see everything," he warned her, focusing his will on keeping the chakra in its final stage before the technique was completed.

She exhaled slowly and steeled herself visibly. "I know."

He doubted that she really knew what she was agreeing to, but he could accept her sincerity. He nodded, committing himself to the technique. "Alright. Now think of your dream, and try to relax as much as possible. I'll be right with you."

"Mmh," she mumbled and closed her eyes. She flinched a bit as he put his glowing hand to the back of her neck, but otherwise she didn't move. The nearly complete jutsu was already influencing her mind, searching for any and all memory snippets to give as comprehensive a picture as possible.

Kakashi let it work for another minute, not getting distracted by the increasingly fearful tinge of her chakra. Then he slowly released the last seal and found himself in a concentrated emptiness.

On the edge of his perception he was aware of his body and how hers slumped against the wall, but most of his consciousness was focused on the image of Sakura – a Sakura who seemed a lot more resolute and self-confident than she was in real life. Also older. She was sixteen, seven-teen at least. Was this how she saw herself?

"Sakura?" he asked to get her attention.

She looked up, found him, and frowned. "Sensei? I thought you were doing your mind-reading technique?"

Kakashi nodded. "Yes. Can you think of the event for me, please?"

He didn't tell her that, the few times he had used the technique, he had never landed in any kind of mind-scape, black emptiness or otherwise. Neither had he met a mental representation of the person. But, whatever. Things like people's minds were as different as night and day, and he wasn't one to criticize others' mental representations.

Slowly, color began to flood the place, a dark green and brown of moss, leaves, and tree trunks. Kakashi watched as gradually, a forest took shape around them, bigger than real life.

Probably what a forest looked like from the perspective of a small child.

He looked around to get some clues as to where he was, but the dream - or was it a memory? - was too indistinct and blurred to make out any details. But, even for a small child, he was a bit too low towards the ground. Was he/she crouching?

"Hide and seek," the strangely adult Sakura said. She was right there with him, and he raised an eyebrow at her. She wasn't supposed to be with him as a physical representation in the dream. The jutsu wasn't designed to facilitate mind-to-mind communication, but rather to help recall and allow the caster to be immersed in a reflection of the memory. The jutsu also contained a calming factor, to establish a dreamlike state in the castee, both to ease the ability of recall, and to prevent the castee from interfering – be it through deliberate sabotage or through the mind trying to protect itself from emotional trauma.

But there was no component that would induce mind-to-mind communication.

Then again, he supposed that all minds were different, and this was only a small anomaly.

"You know where we are?" he asked Sakura. No reason not to take advantage of the anomaly.

She shrugged. "Somewhere, I'm sure. Not too far from the playground, probably."

He nodded and kept looking around. She, too, did the same.

"How old were you when this happened?" It seemed that there was still time to talk before the action started. Neither the mental representation nor the memory itself showed any signs of being scared yet. Was she already an academy student?

The older Sakura shook her head slowly. "Not sure. About eight or nine, I'd say. After I met Ino though. Didn't play hide-and-seek before."

Then he heard it. A soft wailing that sounded like 'no', and a male voice – not articulated enough to understand words – that growled something. The Sakura of then obviously had switched her entire focus to audio then, because the forest blurred into near nonexistence in favor of sounds. Only the mental representation of Sakura remained completely unchanged.

The wail grew louder, the male voice, too. A sharp snap that might have been a dry tree limb being broken off, but just as well an open-handed slap to a face.

"You will be quiet, you hear me?" the male growled. Some coughs at the end.

The female voice – Kakashi was quite certain it was a woman and not a girl – sniffed and stuttered a 'Y-yes'.

Rustling. This time definitely the sound of twigs and leaves being crushed, together with a half-suppressed, hysterical sob. Some more coughs, dry and hacking.

Kakashi frowned.

Suddenly, the thick foliage came into focus at the same time as people could be seen through the gaps, stumbling and dragging heavy feet through the dead leaves on the ground. There was no clear line of sight though. Kakashi thought he saw a flash of olive green – a chuunin or jounin vest? - and purple, but he was still relying mainly on sound.

A crash of a body being slammed against a tree trunk, together with a yelp of air being forced out of lungs. The Sakura next to him flinched and bit her lips. However, she was a lot more composed than she had seemed in his apartment. Instead of being wide-eyed and scared, this Sakura seemed almost... angry?

The gruff male voice again, hoarse from intermittent coughs, a leer in his tone. "You liked that, didn't you? Then you'll like this even more."

"N-no, please, don't -"

A slap and a harsh cough. "Quiet, I said!"

Kakashi's frown grew deeper. He nearly recognized the voices, but time and the second-hand experience distorted them just enough to make identification impossible. The coughs though...

A slight wind moved the leaves just enough to grant a glimpse of the back of a man – clearly with chuunin vest – forcing someone smaller, slighter against a tree. The sound of struggles. A low grunt of someone, the man probably. Then fabric ripping, and a budding scream that was muffled hastily. Something that might be a litany of 'No's being repeated behind a hand holding a mouth shut.

The Sakura next to him was still eerily composed, if he overlooked the dark cloud of anger gathering above her. Her fists clenched and unclenched, and she looked ready to storm out of hiding and into plain sight to bash someone over the head. Like she always did with Naruto.

A very interesting reaction, especially compared to the timid and scared girl she had been just before he had cast that jutsu.

"You just had to go this far, didn't you?" the man snarled. "I was thinking of making things easy for you 'cause you've been a good girl. But now?"

Again a cough. Then another, a whole series that sounded like the guy was hacking up half a lung. Luckily, the wind gave Kakashi another glance of the couple. To Kakashi, it looked like the man was nearly incapacitated by the force of his coughs. Surely that was enough of a chance for the woman to get free?

Instead, she almost seemed to be supporting him, mumbling something that was too soft to understand. One of her thighs was bare, her miniskirt ripped up to her waist, a flash of long, purple hair. Then the visuals were gone again, and more clothes rustled once the man's coughing stopped. It was nearly drowned out by the sounds of nature around them.

By now, Kakashi was completely convinced that it was indeed a memory. There were just too many details that a simple dream didn't have.

Finally a wail, high and keening, barely muffled behind the man's hand. To an eight-year-old, it might have sounded like she was being tortured, but to Kakashi... Even through the biased recall of Sakura, he thought it was more pleased than pained. Older Sakura though definitely didn't seem to think so, as she looked about ready to throttle someone in helpless anger.

The following noises were equally bivalent, and a chance glimpse showed quite unmistakable movement of the man's hips. The woman had one leg wrapped around his waist, a hand in his hair. She wasn't so much struggling as... participating enthusiastically?

"Hayate! Please!"

Kakashi groaned inwardly. The cough, the purple hair, the voices – he'd had his suspicions that it was Hayate and his lover Yuugao, but to have it proven like that? And to have a child next to him flinching at every sound the woman made, torn between impotent fear and helpless anger?

He couldn't close his eyes since it was a memory directly being fed into his brain, but at least the Sakura of then had looked away and focused intently on a single leaf in front of her eyes. That way, Kakashi got treated to the detailed study of maple leaf biology while he kept hearing snatches of grunts, moans, and wild enjoyment. And Kakashi knew it was enjoyment, because he had stumbled across Hayate and Yuugao like that a couple of times himself. He had even been invited by Hayate once upon discovering them, but Yuugao's glare had reminded him that he hadn't found the destination of the Road of Life yet, and that he might want to go and discover where it led. Like, right now.

When things grew quiet again and remained quiet for a long time, Kakashi slowly released the chakra he had been filtering into Sakura's system, and been getting back with the memory impressions. As soon as the chakra flow was stopped, Kakashi removed his hand from Sakura's neck to rub his own, hopefully staving off the headache that was threatening to take up permanent residence in his brain. Sakura had dissolved into tears when the memory ended, and he could hear how she was trying to stay quiet.

He was going to _kill_ them! How in the world did one explain to a twelve-year-old that she had accidentally witnessed two of Konoha's most notorious closet fetishists acting out a rape fantasy, or whatever they thought they were doing? Just from looking at them, nobody would ever think that serious, stick-up-her-behind Yuugao and nice but sick Hayate preferred that much kink in their private life, but... calm rivers running deep, and all that.

But what was he supposed to tell Sakura, who was curled into a ball and trembling now? More importantly, what to tell her so that she understood that in any other case, with any other two people, she would have indeed witnessed a rape? What to tell her that when she saw such a scene again, she didn't automatically dismiss it as another two people playing pretend?

Kakashi valiantly resisted the urge to put his head in his hands and groan. Insensitive as he might be, even _he_ knew that this would be the wrong reaction when confronted with a distraught girl.

"That was... interesting," he finally started. She only cried harder. "Well, first off, you did the right thing, Sakura," he tried again. "You knew you couldn't do anything, and that you couldn't draw any attention to yourself. And you did the absolute right thing by staying where you were and not move a muscle. I know that this can be the hardest sometimes, and you did really good. I think you even managed to suppress your chakra to undetectable levels."

Because if she hadn't and Hayate and Yuugao had continued despite sensing someone nearby, he was going to kill them for real. "No matter whether that was instinct or not, that is an excellent skill-level for an academy student. If you were already that good at nine, then it's no wonder you managed the tree-climbing exercise on the first try. The only thing you _could_ have done better was tell someone. Not only to report a possible crime, but also to help yourself. Believe me, talking helps."

And wasn't _he_ being a hypocrite suggesting something like that? "It will be very hard at first to find the words, but things you can find words for have a way of being... more manageable. "

Sakura was still crying silently, but at least she seemed a bit more composed. Now, how to tackle the main problem.

"That aside; now that you have the complete memory, did you notice anything strange with the situation?" He silently handed her a tissue and waited until she had taken it. She took her time patting her eyes and blowing her nose, concentrating on that one task as if it was the most important thing in the world.

"He – he was coughing. The entire time," she finally mumbled.

"Good. What else?"

Sakura's brow creased slightly as her eyes took on a far-off look. Her tears had stopped almost entirely as she thought. "He was really sick, wasn't he? And he still managed to – to -"

Kakashi barely suppressed a wince and tried to steer her into safer waters. "Would you say he was a shinobi or a civilian?"

"Shinobi." Quick, without any hesitation and a hundred percent sure.

"That's right. Now, for the woman. Do you remember what she did with her arms?"

"Sensei?"

He sighed and formed a shadow clone. Perhaps he was expecting too much from her. The clone henged into a random chuunin half an inch taller than Sakura, about the same height difference as there was between Yuugao and Hayate. "When he had her against the tree, where were her arms?"

Wide-eyed, she stared at the clone. Her eyes moved nervously from the chakra construct to Kakashi and back. "His – his back?"

"Very good. Now put your hands around the clone like that."

Sakura started trembling, and Kakashi could already see the fear overwhelming her bout of rationality. Shit, he'd have to work quickly before everything went to the dogs.

"I am trying to show you something," he assured her. "The clone isn't going to hurt you; it's not even going to touch you." Thankfully his clone caught on and stared blankly ahead, completely lifeless except for the minimal raising of its chest. "Would you please try it?"

Slowly, she got up with tear streaks drying on her face. Kakashi could see how much it cost her to approach the clone and follow his instructions. As she put her arms around it, one above its shoulder and one around its side, a blush of embarrassment worked itself onto her skin. Well, at least she wasn't trembling from fear anymore, and his clone didn't react at all to her proximity.

"Good," he nodded in satisfaction. "Can you still form seals like that?"

Frowning, she tried and succeeded in bringing her hands together in a ram seal. Surprised, she tired a few more, and all of them worked. "Kakashi-sensei?"

"What do you think that would mean if she were a shinobi?"

"Th- that she could have done j-jutsu -"

"Exactly. What other vulnerable locations can you reach like this?"

The chuunin vest covered easy access to kidneys and most spinal attack points including the neck, but Sakura managed to yank the clone's ear and even go for its eyes. Her execution of the non-lethal submission technique was a bit too forceful though – or his clone had decided it had enough of staring blankly into space – and the chakra construct dispersed. She coughed in the thick smoke, startled by the sudden absence of her demonstration partner.

"Sorr – Sorry, sensei, didn't mean to..."

Kakashi waved her off, accepting the phantom pain of someone poking their fingers into his eyes. There were much worse ways for a clone to be dispelled. "Maa, that's alright. I think you already got what I mean. He was a shinobi, yes?"

"Yes..."

"Would a shinobi leave himself so vulnerable to crippling attacks, even if she was only a civilian?"

Slowly she seated herself again, slumping against the wall next to him. There was a far-away look in her eyes. Kakashi let her think, let her ponder over the revelations. Her emotions were clearly visible on her face; first fear, then doubt, then disbelief, then doubt again, and beneath all that a great load of confusion that was becoming more and more prominent.

Finally, she shook her head. "I don't understand, Kakashi-sensei. I don't think a shinobi should, or even would, but he did and she didn't take advantage of it. She – she didn't even run away when he was coughing so hard, so I don't – I don't know!"

The anguish in her big green eyes, combined with the drying tear tracks, would have moved anyone who wasn't already desensitized to such displays of puppy eyes.

Kakashi sighed heavily. "Well, coincidentally I recognized the two of them. They're both shinobi; Hayate ought to have been a chuunin back then, and I think Yuugao was already a special jounin. If Yuugao had wanted to, she could have easily freed herself. What you saw was nothing but a pretense. They were trying to make it sound as real as possible. And that's why they were so deep into the woods that nobody would see them and think that something else was going on. They didn't know you were there, or they'd never have continued with their pretense."

"But – but," Sakura stuttered wide-eyed, "why would they _do_ that? Why did she want to – she was so _scared_! He was hitting her, and, and... she was crying the whole time..."

He was so not going to go into how half of Yuugao's sounds had been from enjoyment instead of pain. "I know. Yuugao is a good actress. She and Hayate like to play pretend games like that. Don't ask me why, I have no idea. If it was anyone but those two, I'd immediately bring this to the Hokage's attention. Because then, you would have been right. But with the two of them... they're quite famous amongst jounin and chuunin circles for their... strange pretense games. See it like that: just like I have my books, they have their game. Do you think it would help you if you could talk to Yuugao? The least she could do is apologize for scaring you this much."

And if it ended with Yuugao having to explain kinky sex to a naïve pre-teen, that was only poetic justice. Honestly, Kakashi had enough of this melodrama. He was glad that the underlying occasion was nothing serious, but he was far from happy that it had scarred his student like this. He was no mind-healer, but he had his suspicions that the older, brash Sakura he had encountered in her mind-scape was a by-product of that scare – a personality fragment that could express herself when Sakura's deepest wish was to be quiet and unseen.

There was no way though that he was going to touch onto that topic by himself.

Sakura's eyes were still wider than normal, but her chakra was calming. She nodded slowly. "I – I think I'd like that. Talk to – Yuugao-san."

"Alright." He easily formed a shadow clone, sending it out to check whether Yuugao was in the village at the moment. The quicker he got them talking to each other, the less likely it was for Sakura to have time to clam up again. And the quicker he could refer her to a mind-healer, the earlier the entire situation would be Someone Else's problem.

He wanted to strangle someone. He didn't though, because he realized that Sakura was starting to fall asleep on his shoulder, only an occasional stray tear dampening the fabric of his flak jacket. With his other arm he grabbed for his trusty old Icha Icha paradise and settled himself in for a long wait.

– THE END –

–

**A/**N: Well... After such a long time, it's finally done. I don't know how many times I wrote and rewrote that final chapter (going from things being full-out rape to Sakura having gotten a hold on some... disturbing adult literature or movie, to nearly everything in between). I hope I found a medium, and that the quick and dirty solution of Kakashi having a jutsu to uncover buried memories wasn't too dirty. In real life, when things like that happen, it takes months and years for such trauma to begin healing (or even being uncovered), and it might not manifest in any of the obvious PTSD symptoms. Also, healing can only start when the affected person really wants to. I tried to touch on all of that, and not make things too cliché. I hope I succeeded at least somewhat.

Oh, and in case you're wondering: what Kakashi does (discussing the memory with Sakura, helping her discover things she overlooked) IS part of regular trauma therapy, but in the real world I'd expect that one conversation to be the end result of about a month's therapy. And that is only the beginning – if you note, Sakura hasn't said a single word about how she feels about things after the revelation, and that's the most crucial part of it. She's still in the shock phase and nowhere near to dealing with everything. But that would be another several chapters, and The Talk is over and done with.

Many, many thanks to everyone who kept reviewing and PM'ing me to remind me that there's still an unfilled story, and that there are still people waiting to see how things turn out. Thank you everyone.

~Sakiku


End file.
